


to hold that swelling truth

by bitelikefire (theoleo)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Canon Divergence, Flashbacks, M/M, Past Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the winter soldier fucked me up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-02 23:24:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2829830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoleo/pseuds/bitelikefire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What do you remember?” Sam asks, curious as Steve sets down their lunch and takes a seat beside him.</p><p>This is what Steve remembers about Bucky.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to hold that swelling truth

_"If I had words to speak such a thing, I would have._  
_But there were none that seemed big enough for it, to hold that swelling truth."_

~ Madeline Miller "The Song of Achilles."

* * *

 

The first thing he does is dump the gear.

Incinerates it all in a large garbage disposal behind a slimy building the moment the smoke clears from the Potomac. The smell is heinous. And it melds with the squeaking and twitching bodies of the trapped rats that were digging for food. They burn with the cast away scraps of the restaurant. A waste.

He keeps the Kevlar under armour, guns and knives. He’s not stupid.

 

* * *

 

The diner isn’t very busy. Located on a less than populated side of town outside of Constanta and Steve’s coffee is getting cold. It’s his fourth one and the translations on the ledger lain flat on the table are beginning to swim in his vision.

“Well my Romanian is still as embarrassing as I remembered it,” Sam says lightly, sliding himself into the cramped booth. He brings with him a tray of double stack pancakes for the both of them and sets it gently on the table. “So what do we have?”

Steve sighs and rubs at his eyes.

“That bad huh,” Sam cuts off a small knob of butter and puts it on both their cakes. He sounds just as exhausted as Steve feels and when Steve looks up at him, he looks even worse.

“Sam, you know you don’t have to do this.”

“Dude, for the last time, stop telling me that.”

“You almost didn’t make it out of that building because of all this,” Steve ignores him and picks up a fork, but he doesn’t feel like eating. Plays with it instead and knows his younger self, the self that still co-exists within him in the present now and back in the past growing up in the Depression would be appalled at the way he ignores the steaming pile of breakfast in front of him. “If you want out, I won’t have any hard feelings.”

“I know you won’t,” Sam yawns loud, flapping a hand over his mouth. “But again, no thanks. Let me see that again?” He slides the ledger over to his side and flips it around.

“How far is the location Natasha sent?” he asks, eyes still on the documents. Steve doesn’t have to check his phone to repeat it. He had been going over multiple attack plans in his head ever since he received it three hours ago.

“It’s about a two hour drive to Bucharest. Underground base. Definitely booby trapped or still active at least.”

“Sounds fun.” Sam says and Steve sees the faded blue photo of the cryo machine and the ghostly face underneath when he turns the next page. Steve’s fingers twitch atop the plastic counter. He wants to reach for it. There has to be something in there that he missed. Something that doesn’t verify what he’s been dreading ever since the altercation at the causeway. Maybe if he –

“Eat,” Sam says, eyes still scanning the documents that he knows Steve has obsessively memorized like the back of his hand and Steve swallows, looking out the window to his right where the ornate and ancient European structures tower and shine.

The documents outline the procedure of implanting the metallic arm on Bucky and how it corresponds with his brainstem, Steve remembers, and tries to push away the accompanying photos of Bucky’s raw and severed arm, post and pre procedure. It goes onto describing how the mechanics of the arm also links to his brainstem to negate any feeling in it aside from pressure. It could have killed him. The records describe how it almost did.

It’s clinical. Cold, and without feeling. Steve’s fingers clench around the handle of his fork, strong enough to crush.

 

* * *

 

“—you sure you don’t want me to install rockets into the wings?” Tony’s voice comes through from the Bluetooth connection in the rental car. “I mean, let’s be logical here Wilson. Say you’re out of bullets and – “

 “The mission is tomorrow night.” Sam says.

 “And?”

 “Is it gonna take longer to install than if you just skipped it?” Sam clarifies. He’s been without his wings since Bucky tore them in half like cotton candy on the hellicarrier and it’s been hard not to notice how much his nerves spike the closer they come to the mission date and he’s still grounded.

 “As if I have other things to do than tink around in this mausoleum.”  There’s the sound of distant whirring and beeping coming through the other end, still, Steve can hear his snort as he drives.

And then:  “was I supposed to answer that seriously? Please I can do it with my eyes closed.”

 Steve interjects, “exactly how secure is this line?”

“Cap, I am insulted.”

“Tony.”

“Highly secure,” Tony says, serious. “With SHIELD out of the picture for now, I’m the best security you’re going to get Rogers. Smaller circles and all.”

Steve breathes and lets some of the paranoia loosen in his chest. “Thanks.”

Sam nudges his knee to Steve’s thigh and gestures to the tablet in his hands. “Motel up on Bucharest. Out of sight, barely any civilians.” He raises an eyebrow in suggestion and before Steve can say anything Tony pipes up.

“I have a safe house in Bucharest,” and there’s the familiar blast of an explosion. He continues un-phased. “You should use it. I can have JARVIS wired there.”

Steve squints. “Why do you have a safe house in Bucharest?”

“You think you’re the only person with paranoia and trust issues?” It would sting, if it was said from someone else, and Steve glances to Sam who shrugs, sliding the tablet to another screen.

“I’ll send the coordinates. Don’t get yourselves blown up. I’m throwing a welcome bash for Fabio the next time he decides to gate crash.”

Sam mouthes back _“Fabio?”_ to Steve, confused. Steve shakes his head with a ghost of a smile hinting his face that he hasn’t felt in a while.

 

* * *

 

 

By the time they reach Tony’s safe-house, the sun is on the early steps of dawn.

Steve was worried the building would be a beacon, and look as grandiose as the Avengers Tower back in New York or like Tony’s old home in Malibu before it was sent into the ocean. But it’s discreet enough and resembles more of an old fashioned stone villa by its size. It could pass as abandoned. And although the doors look wooden on the outside, when they pass the retinal scan, the interior of it is sheer metal.

 “Good evening Captain Rogers. Mr. Wilson,” welcomes JARVIS as the lights flicker on.

 “Woah,” Sam whistles, shouldering his duffel and looking around.

 “You get used to it,” Steve says and notes every vantage point and open window. Memories of three gun shots coming from his own apartment still vivid in his memory. Bucky could be dead. Could be hunting down the same HYDRA plants, or be tracking he and Sam down to finish the job.

 Steve drops his bag on the ground and shrugs out of his jacket. “JARVIS? Could you project these coordinates for me?” And holds up one of the portfolio folders that highlights some of the first HYDRA bases from the mid-seventies.

 “Certainly Captain Rogers.” The map flickers into life in front of them. Traced in brilliant neon blue. Steve has seen Tony do this about a handful of times enough to understand how to wing it. “Perfect. Thank you. Now, zoom in to the one marked василиск…”

 

* * *

 

 

One of the reasons why Steve chose the apartment in Washington was for how much it reminded him of back home.

Despite what Fury and Agent Hill had suggested – which was living in a glass fortress with about a dozen security guards on-call and enough room to shelter five kids – Steve couldn’t find a reason to live there.

(“It’s a damn invitation for a death wish Rogers and you know it,” Fury had said, leaning back on his chair. “But if you want to dangle your life and trust that nothing will go down – “

“It’s not about trust.” Steve snapped, at the end of his rope. His uniform was sweaty and bits of debris was stuck in his hair. All he wanted was a shower in a place that wasn’t on SHIELD’s pay roll.

Fury tilted his head. “Oh? Then what is it about?”

 _I want to feel normal. For once I don’t want to be put on a damned display_. Steve’s grip on his helmet tightened even further. “I signed the lease. Hill has my mission report.” And he turned to go, placing the shield on the straps on his back. )

The apartment was humble. It didn’t cost too much and was far enough out the way of Dupont Circle that Steve didn’t have to worry about being recognized. There was no working elevator and the laundry machines jammed enough of the time that Steve hung his shirts to dry in the living room like he used to.

There was a florist shop directly across where they displayed tulips and blue hydrangea flowers too. Maybe that was why he chose it.

 

* * *

 

 

**1936**

 

“Buck! I’m not done yet!” Steve said, twisting away from Bucky’s insistent hands. 

It was a disgustingly hot day out and Bucky had shown up at Steve’s door uninvited. Not that Steve minded then. His mother at work and leaving Steve at home still nursing a cold that had been at the end of dying down.

The few windows he had were already open but still, Steve’s shirt clung to his collarbones. Bucky, on the other hand, had discarded his shirt altogether like the menace he was. His usually combed hair was wet across his forehead and his upper lip was sheened in sweat.

“C’mon Steve, you gotta put that one up.” He pointed to a piece of white wall in Steve’s bedroom. “This place is starting to look like a tomb. Ya got no colour in here.”

Steve still wriggled away, insecure with his sketch. It was a doodle. Nothing important and sure as hell not worthy to be put up on his wall. “It’s not even finished.”

Bucky shrugged then. His shoulders had filled out from working both at the grocer and down at the docks. The dim light made the sweat that clung there gleam even more and if Steve didn’t know any better, he’d think Bucky was teasing him.

Luckily, he knew Bucky like the back of his hand.

“Then hurry up and finish it. And then we can go and see if there’s a hydrant open, or hell, I’ll personally burst one open cause I’m dyin’ here Steve,” and dramatically plopped himself on the mattress beside him. He was too close. The shared heat of their bodies making it even harder to breathe than it normally was for Steve.

Steve’s body went into immediate sense overload. Bucky’s heat radiating into his own and making sweat pearl and slide down from his armpits. Bucky’s scent – salty and musky and oddly sweet clogging his nose, and even looking at him from his peripheral was making his brain short-circuit.

“How about I draw something with actual colour in it and maybe you can convince me to put it somewhere,” Steve bargained and Bucky’s face split into an affectionate grin. He always loved a challenge.

“Deal.”

“Alright,” Steve breathed and scooted back from him a little. Made it seem as though he was getting comfortable rather than getting away. “What do you want your highness?”

“Hmm…” Bucky feigned and got to his feet, tapping a finger on his chin comically and Steve couldn’t help but laugh. Bucky turned to catch the grin on Steve’s heated face, eyes bright. “Mrs. Vine just put out those blue flowers. Think you can handle that Steve?”

 

* * *

 

 

When Steve comes out of the bathroom at four in the morning, Natasha is standing in the foyer in a white sleeveless dress carrying a large parcel under her arm.

Her hair is dyed blonde and extends past her shoulders. She looks like an entirely different person and well, that’s probably what she was aiming for anyway. Steve blinks the sleep out of his eyes. He had been expecting her, but after midnight he figured she had more than a few fences to jump to find her way out of obscurity. He thinks he should have alerted JARVIS earlier.

“I was really hoping I’d have to wake you up,” she says. “Have you slept?”

Steve shrugs and pads over to her, flicking the light on. “What’s in the box?”

Natasha purses her lips but then drops the package on a glass table. “Never thought I’d be delivery girl for Stark. It’s Sam’s wings. Merry Christmas. He asleep?”

“Yeah, out like a light.” Steve says fondly and scratches at the beard that has begun to grow across his jaw. The picture of Sam snoring on the couch with underground tunnel blueprints on top of his chest comes to mind.

Natasha looks him up and down. “Have you slept?”

Here we go. “Nat – “

“You get real stupid when you’re compromised Steve, has anyone ever told you that?” She walks to the open kitchen and pours water into a kettle and turns the gas stove on. “It’s a dangerous pattern. You don’t want to get trapped in that loop.”

Steve sits and rubs at his eyes with the balls of his hands, eyes clenched tight. He’s stubborn enough to not answer but he’s also not so stupid that he’ll deny it. He’s exhausted to his bones. He aches in ways he hasn’t felt since before the serum.

“It’s not for lack of trying,” he says instead and rests his arms on the table.

Natasha turns and leans back on her palms. “I told you not to pull on that thread.”

**_“Procedure has begun. Subject responds well to serum but serum proves ineffective to anaesthesia…left arm removal and replacement a success… despite complications…Note: Midazolam may be necessary to subdue subject.”_ **

“Do you know what Midazolam is used for?” Steve asks, finally looking up at Natasha who has finished making them both tea. She freezes, and it’s such a miniscule pause that Steve wouldn’t have noticed it if he hadn’t been on so many missions with her already. The look she gives him says it all and she comes over to him, placing his cup in front of him but stands.

“It’s a memory erasure drug. It induces sedation and amnesia for medical procedures. Pretty low brow in the legal medicine world but,” she bites her bottom lip and speaks into the contents of her drink, “The Red Room tweaked it. Extended the effects. Short term became long term.”

Steve knew. He had a feeling. But his blood still runs cold and he fights the urge to clench his eyes and break something. God, Bucky –

Natasha’s hand finds his left shoulder and grips tight. He lifts his own and rests it over her smaller one.

 

* * *

 

 

Steve avoids the Smithsonian as much as possible these days.

He feels sick when looking at the looped black and white reels.

He’s a failure. A fraud.

A disappointment to the one person who ever mattered. And they wonder why he nosedived into the Atlantic.

 

* * *

 

 

The compound is a shadowy monstrosity and the air is already thick with the smell of ash. Even from the outside, it’s clear that they’re already too late. Someone had gotten there first.

“Guess we were right about the booby traps,” Sam calls, crouching low to where several gun shells and grenade pins are scattered along the floor. And blood. Lots of blood and bodies. “This whole place is giving me bad vibes.”

Steve’s not paying any attention though. Anger and frustration on the verge of exploding. It was Bucky. It had to be Bucky. And if he had just gotten here sooner –

“He was here.”

Sam straightens up, a blood crusted disk in one hand that he pockets in his army pants. His new set of wings still manage to gleam in the foggy room. “We don’t know that for sure. There was a fight, but maybe – “

A pained gurgling and moaning sound echoes from the chambers below.

Before Steve knows it, he’s running down onto the metal steps where the sounds keep coming from and ignores Sam’s shout. Steve vaults down the last two flights on a jump and lands in a roll back on his feet. The compartment door in the basement is wide open. More broken computers and windows, more smoke, more ashes, burnt files and frying exposed cable wires…

Steve pulls out his shield from the straps on his back and follows the sound coming from behind a row of shattered monitors and makes the corner –

The HYDRA agent on the ground is bleeding heavily from a wound to his thigh, clutching to the damp, soaked mess of his uniform pants and sweating with his teeth clenched. He grunts again and meets Steve’s eyes with shaking anger, convulsing.

It’s callously done. A blow worse than an execution shot at the back of the head or between the eyes like the rest of the bodies upstairs. Whoever this is, Bucky made it personal. Two facts enter Steve’s mind as he watches, gloved hands balling into fists.

One. The femoral artery takes a total of three minutes to kill an adult man, give or take. Considering the amount of slick blood on the floor. Maybe one and a half.

Two. That means Bucky’s trail must still be hot.

 Steve slots the shield back with a metallic clink and makes to sprint towards the staircase and nearly collides into Sam. “Woah! Steve! What the – holy shit.”

“We just missed him,” Steve says, sparing another glance over his shoulder at the still body. “He has to be on foot. We can – “

“Steve, slow down – “ Sam cuts in and grabs him by the bicep but Steve tugs his arm out of the grip, desperate to give chase, to run, only Sam grabs onto him again and this time isn’t letting Steve go without a fight. Steve lets himself be turned around, jaw locked.

“If you take the skies and I go on foot we might be able to find a trail – “

“Because a master assassin who is basically a walking shadow is going to be so easy to find – “

“Well then we better hurry – “

“Steve.”

“Sam, let me go, we’re wasting – “

“Steve!” Sam shouts, eyes locked on something over Steve’s shoulder and the sheer panic in his tone is enough to make Steve spin around and notice the blinking red timer sitting on a charred counter. 35 seconds. Tops.

“Fuck,” Steve curses and looks for an exit. The stairs the only route up from the basement. There’s no other vault beneath their feet. But the windows –

Steve makes to toss his shield but is tackled to the side by Sam, who scoops him up around the waist and secures Steve’s arm around his shoulder just as he activates his wings. Steve gets with the program and holds on tight before they both charge for one of the barely broken in windows, crashing through it and taking off.

Sam’s shout is the only thing Steve hears before the blast wave behind them. Heat and smoke following them no matter how high Sam takes them both. The com links in his ears burst and now they’re both screaming, eyes clenched tight against the threat of the fire and explosions that keep blowing after each other in tandem. Over and over.

 

* * *

 

 

“Goddammit,” Sam says, throwing off his goggles and tossing them somewhere as they walk back into the villa. His right arm is hanging funny, definitely dislocated by taking Steve’s weight against the natural pull of gravity.

They’re both covered in soot and grime, uniforms drenched and sticky. Steve’s ears are crusted with blood, and he can’t hear that great from the right one. He pulls off his helmet and lets it knock on the marble floor.

“Want me to reset that?” Steve asks. He can’t meet Sam’s gaze. The shame sits oily and uncomfortable in his gut. Dirty.

Sam takes a swing of tequila that he pulled from the freezer, doesn’t respond.

“Sam.”

“That was a damn trap and you know it.”

Steve sighs and leans back on the couch and chooses not to argue the point. He has already flaunted how emotionally compromised he is. Sam doesn’t need the reminder. “You said it yourself he had to have just been there and we just so happen to almost get blown sky high immediately after he escapes?”

“He was destroying the base. That doesn’t mean he knew we were right behind him.” Steve’s not sure if he’s trying to convince Sam or himself. He hasn’t known for a long time. The look Sam shoots him is cold.

“Look me in the eye and tell me you believe that.” And that’s just it. Steve can’t. Steve lowers his head and starts to peel off his gloves.

He doesn’t say what he wants to say. That he didn’t force Sam on this wild goose chase. That he can still leave if that’s where this is leading. The story had always been about him and Bucky. It started there. If Steve’s going to go up in a rigged explosion or taken out by a sniper shot, well, he’d rather have the death count be one.

What he says is, “I’m sorry Sam.”

Sam stares for a few uncomfortable beats before shaking his head, almost sadly and mutters, “you just don’t get it.” And shuffles awkwardly to the bathroom, closing the door softly behind himself. Steve waits until he hears the rush of the shower starting before resting his face in his hands. Holds back the urge to throw the lamp beside him against the glass screen.

 

* * *

 

 

When Sam comes out of the shower, cleaned up and in track pants and a purple shirt, he plops down next to Steve on the couch where he hasn’t moved.

“Help a brother out?” He says, nodding to his shoulder like the last fifteen minutes never happened. Steve smiles softly and puts the joint back in place, earning a long litany curse from Sam that makes the small smile on his face turn into a flat out grin.

Sam looks over his shoulder and starts to laugh. It’s the first time Steve has genuinely laughed in, well, decades.

 

* * *

 

 

There are a lot of things that Steve can still be thankful for.

Meeting Bucky was a fortune Steve never was able to wrap his head around. And then there was Erskine, and the serum that preserved his body despite the frost. Kept his heart beating through years of ice and isolation. Kept him alive to find Bucky all over again.

Only this time, he doesn’t find Bucky the way he remembers. Five and a half years old and sporting dirty knees while poking at the first spuds of grass that began to show under the earth. Looking up when a shadow covered the sun that bore overhead and meeting an even more blinding smile.

_(“You wanna play?”)_

Steve figures he should hate that he found Bucky in this new world. Because even though it hurt and would never stop hurting, the sight of Bucky’s face falling from him -- lined with fear and echoing screams --  believing that Bucky died and was at peace and untouched somewhere should be better than knowing _this._

The truth is, Bucky fell and survived. Laid flat in the falling snow and waited. Waited. Only to be dragged into the hands of people who sought to warp and mutilate him.

They both ended up in ice, in the end.  

* * *

 

“I know you don’t need the reminding, but you do realize that he can’t be the same.” It’s not a question when Sam asks after they get a verification from Hill that a jet will be picking them up from Romania and back to America.

Steve had brooded all day. Still sure to his core that Bucky was in Europe and nowhere on the west coast. He clenched his jaw and went to the grocery store to pick up food that wasn’t from a can or had to be delivered. When he came back, Sam had their bags already packed and was oiling his wings.

They barely spoke a word throughout Steve’s simple cooking process. Just a few tossed confirmations on if the soup had enough salt or if it was too early to open the cognac.

“You can’t keep running from it Steve.” Sam says, pulling out two bowls. “Even if you do find him, he’s been through too much to be the guy you knew all those years ago. You gotta prepare yourself for it.”

Steve just shakes his head, pouring them both equal sized portions of roasted tomato soup. He doesn’t say “I know” because he’s said it enough times and still falls back on the “but’s” and “ifs”.

“Just because he might not end up remembering doesn’t mean I don’t.”

“What do you remember?” Sam asks, curious as Steve sets down their lunch and takes a seat beside him.

This is what Steve remembers about Bucky:

He was always hungry. There wasn't a single food Bucky didn't like and Steve found it hard to blame it on the Depression-- his own appetite small compared to most. But Bucky seemed to be a bottomless pit. Which made sense-- he was growing taller every month and in the long run, helped Steve get out of the reprimands of their nuns and mothers for not finishing his own plate. The only thing he hated was milkshakes. He had been lactose intolerant and yet still never said no to dames who asked. 

He drank his coffee scalding black and knew how to tie various kinds of complicated knots that the guys at the docks taught him. Which Steve was grateful for because their front door got rickety and weak during certain storms and Bucky always made a fast knot to keep it in place.

When he was twelve, he almost broke his arm jumping off a swing set to impress a girl because he was an idiot and landed with a sickening crunch that was too much for Steve’s fragile heart to handle. In the end, he had to wait for his mother to take him home. Steve was mad at him for days afterwards and wouldn’t talk to him because both their families were too poor for medical bills. But Bucky broke him out of it and into a bout of giggles when he gave him a wet-willie.

He really liked Walt Whitman poetry, although his favourite book was The Great Impersonation by Oppenheim. Bucky would re-read it every time Steve was sick and stuck in bed and refused to leave his side no matter how much Steve told him to get lost. Sometimes he would even read random passages to Steve if he was bored enough or if Steve’s fever wouldn’t let him fall asleep. His British accent was surprisingly good.

He was the fastest runner on their block, at the top of their class and popular with the teachers at school. Which came in handy, when Steve needed to get out of detention after a school-yard brawl. Bucky could charm anything on two legs. Steve never knew who to thank, really, for being blessed with Bucky as a best friend. Some small part of Steve at seventeen, sick in bed and Bucky at the edge of it, reading the funnies in the newspaper, wondered how he could have ever deserved him. 

But he didn't focus too much on that. On why Bucky: tall, smart, strong and likeable Bucky, would want to be best friends with him. 

What he didn't know, was that Bucky's face would contort when he heard people question that very fact to his face but never to Steve's. The notion that trickled down from teachers to students: that Steve would only be pulling someone as excellent and promising at Bucky down to his level. The misfortune of it.

Reputation never meant as much to Bucky as Steve thought it did.

But then, there were good times as well. So many.

Bucky liked to get Steve stupid drunk when they got older, and laughed himself stupid when they sat together in their shitty apartment, limbs tangled and eyes glossy because he always found Steve personally and endlessly hilarious. Would wipe away tears, equally as drunk and say, “oh man, I wish people knew that you’re the funny one out of the two of us.”

He whistled when he cooked, did his laundry in his underwear and would dance Steve around their tight living room and dip him. Steve would blush and try to shove him away. “I ain’t a dame you jerk,” but then laugh and laugh because Bucky would kiss the exposed length of his pale neck and –

Steve shrugs one shoulder, “cognac sounds good. You want a glass?”

He isn’t guilty when Sam gives him a sad look. It’s one of the ones he reserves for when he knows Steve is keeping something from him, only to keep it bottled up inside. Only to let it erupt and destroy him first before he dares bleed out on others.

“Sure.” Sam says and then, “so do you think your Stark pal can hook me up with a new car?”

“Why drive when you’ve got wings?”

Sam snorts into his soup.

* * *

 

_“What do you remember?”_

_(–We were in love. I loved him.)_

* * *

 

The Avengers tower is basically the Stark Tower only with an “A” embellishment on the front.

Steve has gotten to about ten different reasons why this building is a really bad idea by the time the elevator door opens and he’s on the thirty-first floor, greeted by Pepper who stands crisp and beautiful.

“Tony’s tinkering downstairs,” she says delicately and shakes both of their hands while a tanned man in a suit takes his and Sam’s luggage. “Happy here will leave your things in your rooms. There’s a floor for everyone.”

“I can bunk with Cap here,” Sam reasons, “I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

Steve rolls his eyes just as Pepper gives Sam a look that she must have adopted from Tony. It basically screams “have you met Tony?” and “don’t be stupid’ all together.

“You have your own floor as well Sam.” She says, like she’s reporting that one plus one still equals two. Sam’s eyes widen.

“Uh, I just work at the VA. I don’t have the – “

“Thanks Ms. Potts. Is anyone else around?” Steve interjects, laying a hand flat on Sam’s shoulders. Sam shoots him a scandalized look.

“Bruce is in Turkey with Clint for reasons that I may or may not have clearance to tell you about.” Steve raises his eyebrows but Pepper barrels on, “Natasha is in the wind. And Thor is in London. He should be here sometime this week.”

“Can I talk to Tony?” Steve asks right as Sam splutters, “Thor?!”

Pepper shrugs, a strange smile fitting on her face. “You can try.”

 

* * *

 

 

Tony’s sitting in a red vintage car, welding mask on and blasting AC/DC from the speakers when Steve enters the passcode. “You might want to keep some distance. Not sure if I installed the hydraulics or if I just made a bomb, so,” he shrugs.

Steve’s well versed in Tony speak to not take that too seriously, “think I’ll take my chances.”

“Your call.” Tony laughs but it’s not really a laugh. “If you’re here to ask if I got anything from the floppy disk Sam was able to get before you literally almost got smoked the answer is yes and can you pass me that torch?”

Steve hands him the welding torch from on a metal counter. “Dum-E not around?”

“He’s taking a time out.”

Steve crosses his arms and leans against one of Tony’s work stations. “What did you find?”

Tony lifts the mask over his head. “Basically nothing. What you guys found was a recruitment base starting up. Cut off one head, blah blah blah,” he slams a compartment shut and puts the torch under the seat. “Pretty much useless. Save for the surveillance footage it has.” He offers nonchalantly and not like he just dropped the biggest anvil on Steve.

“Wait, what?”

“JARVIS? You awake there buddy?” Tony calls and pulls off his gloves.

“For you sir, always. Shall I display the footage?”

“Baby, you read my mind.”

The space between them flickers into action and right there, in front of Steve’s eyes is a looped recording from one of the computers that the drive must have come from. It looks like the computer kept a webcam activated at all times. The film has a greenish black hue to it.

“Fast forward to the fun part,” Tony says, turning in his seat and finally giving Steve some attention. All he sees now is the face of an agent, stone faced and eyes scanning whatever is on the screen before JARVIS speeds the footage ahead. “And right… here.”

There’s sniper fire coming in. Dropping agents like flies. Steve doesn’t know if Tony muted the audio but right now, it doesn’t matter because there are small bombs going off, blasting hardware and people and fire is flaming in the background. The agent on the screen is blown sideways and then there’s nothing for a solid three minutes.

“Tony,” Steve breathes, eyes fixed on the projection and heart fighting to escape his ribcage he’s starting to feel sick with it.

And right on the four minute mark, there’s Bucky. He’s holding a handgun with a sniper rifle strapped to his back. His hair is short and for a moment, Steve’s heart pangs hard in his chest from where it has been pounding relentlessly. He looks like himself. Back then. Only his Bucky doesn’t walk like this Bucky does. In control and calculating and comfortable with the amount of blood on his body. Dressed in all black and goggles on his face.

He fires shots into all the machines several times and aims at the computer recording and the footage goes dead. Starts to loop.

“Looks like your pal was there. Does that mean you get bragging rights now?” Tony comments and snaps his fingers, the file fading between them. Steve feels dizzy. Disoriented enough that he doesn’t notice the way Tony is studying him.

“It means I shouldn’t have left,” Steve manages to say.

“I saw the fight on the causeway through the feedback,” Tony whistles appreciatively. “Gotta thank the old man for that shield huh Rogers?”

Steve has a feeling he knows where this conversation is heading and to be honest, he’s getting real sick of hearing it and says sarcastically, “sure made flying into that bus a lot more fun.”

Tony almost glares at him but it fizzles too quickly to mean anything. “You know, I take it back. Guess you do have a dark side after all Cap.” Tony says completely out of the blue and puts his attention back on whatever he’s fixing in the car, slams his mask back down and picks up the torch under the seat.

Steve feels his jaw tense. “Care to share with the class?”

“I think you already know.”

 

* * *

 

**1939**

Ma’s at it again”

“At what?" Steve asked, even though he damn well knew. He made sure not to look up at Bucky who was in the middle of hanging up his coat and concentrated on the tricky line of a random sketch. They don’t talk about this.

“Quit playin’ dumb Steve.”

“I think you’re confusing me with yourself Buck.”

“Steve.”

Steve tracked Bucky’s movements from the door to where he made his way around the couch and hovered above him. He’s not joking around. Pushing the sketchpad aside softly as he took a seat across from him. Steve gave in and looked up.

He was a little damp and dirty from his shift at wherever he was working. Brown hair tousled and un-kept, but his eyes were determined. Maybe even a little hurt.

“She has a point,” Steve started, looked at Bucky dead in the eye and beginning the list he had memorized and scripted in his head ever since this started. “You and Susanne have been steady for five months.” Steve swallowed against the hard lump in his throat and wished he was strong enough to hide the burn. His fingers clenched to hold onto something. “And you’ve been avoidin’ it.”

“And I shouldn’t?” Bucky said, angry.

“You know we can’t – that this – “ _Can’t be permanent. Can’t be real._

But Bucky had to have heard it and he dropped to his knees in the small distance between them and rested his large hands on Steve’s knobbly knees, not once breaking his gaze into Steve’s eyes as he said, “I don’t love her.”

“Well learn to Buck,” Steve said and cringed when it came out more as a whisper than anything that had serious force behind it. Anything to prove to Bucky that he meant it this time. Steve couldn’t meet his eyes anymore and talked to their moth eaten carpet. “You can’t expect me to be your dame. Dress up in a white dress and walk down the altar.”

“You wouldn’t be nearly as great in a dress as I would.”

“ _Bucky_. Please.”

Bucky laughed then, a small chuckle that reflected in his eyes and made the edges of Steve’s mouth quiver. His eyes still managed to sparkle and he nudged Steve’s knee. “I ain’t marrying no one I don’t love. And there’s no one I love more than you.”

They’ve said it before. But it never stopped knocking the air out of Steve to hear it. He released a rattled breath and let Bucky card his hands through his floppy hair. Bucky’s hand hot against the side of his face and filling him with a type of warmth he’s never felt.

“We can’t run from this forever.” Steve reasoned, sighing to ignore the ache in his body.

Bucky shrugged and his grin became lopsided and whimsical. “Like we’re living forever.”

* * *

 

Sometimes Steve couldn’t stand the way Bucky couldn’t have a serious conversation when it came to himself.

Sure, if it had something to do with Steve, then Bucky would turn full on mother hen on his ass. If it meant Steve took his medicine daily or if he got to work on time. But more often than not, Steve wanted to throw something at him. Grab him by the ears and scream in his face when he skirted around this.

Other times he needed it. Because thinking about a world where Bucky couldn’t be his. Where someone else would know the sounds he makes when he feels good or how to make him laugh so hard he snorts soda out of his nose, hurt more than any chronic pain could do to him.

* * *

 

“I got your text. Thought you were in Turkey,” Steve says as the elevator drops him on Clint’s floor.

Clint is sitting on a stool, take out bags of Chinese food placed around him and his left ear is taped to the side of his head. His lip is split. “Should I ask?” Steve asks, nodding to the cut.

Clint shrugs, mouth full and rips the plum sauce packet with his teeth. “I mean, if you want me to lie.” Steve huffs a laugh and picks up a carton that Clint nudges towards him.

“Thanks.”

They eat in silence until Clint finally swallows and burps. He rubs at his eye. “So, Nat gave me some intel.”

“Where is she anyway?” Steve struggles to pick up a piece of carrot with his chopsticks.

“Like I know. How she got this, I _really_ don’t wanna know,” Clint says and Steve nods appreciatively.  

“Anyway, there’s this facility posing as a factory in Oregon. Its location on the grid was tricky to route.” And Clint pulls a tablet from his front jean pocket, showing a tracker that keeps changing coordinates. “Keeps giving off fluctuating waves that change every other minute. Definitely sketchy. Not sure if it’s HYDRA but I, personally, am jonesing for a mission. More of a spy thing which, I know isn’t exactly up your alley from what I hear but,” he leaves the tablet on the counter. “You in?”

And the thing is, Steve is itchy for a mission. Something to do other than walk on egg shells around Tony and talk himself down every two hours from picking up Bucky’s trail back in Romania. He thinks about Sam, sleeping on his couch who still tries to hide his limp.  

“I’m in.”

Clint pumps his fist.

* * *

 

The compound is protected by a gated fence with a sign that says it’s a motorcar factory. Steve’s behind a pillar, crouched on one knee and waiting for Clint’s call before heading in.

“What’s your status?” He says into his wrist com piece.

“I count a dozen bodies in the building. Might be more. I’m on the roof at your three. All yours Cap.”

* * *

 

There’s five men already waiting for Steve when he breaks in.

Gunfire greets him the second he breaks through the door and charges in at a full sprint and knocks bodies with the strength of his shield on a full knock out. Bullets spray at him which he deflects with his shield only to twist the vibranium to the side and hit more bodies on the ricochet.

The minute the last body falls, Steve runs and leaps onto a table and twists to make a round house kick across another agent’s neck and the snap he hears is definitely the sound of a snapped vertebrae but he keeps on going. Steve backflips off the counter and ducks a punch, comes back up to knee the masked man three times in the solar plexus until he’s lax and tosses him aside. Steve throws the shield with all his strength and knocks out the last man with a sharp clip to the back of his retreading head and catches it smoothly.  

“Clear.” Steve says and makes for a steady jog down the next available hall where more shouts and blasts are coming out from.

Steve barely has time to retrieve his shield in time when a shot is made for him, but he makes it just in the nick of it and holds the interior metal as the assault of bullets keep raining on him. He winces under the recoil, awaiting a breadth of a pause to move when the familiar whistle of arrows flit by him.

The pelt of bullets stop and Steve turns around gratefully to Clint, another arrow notched as walks forward, fearless and stern faced. His bare arms are ashen and there’s a gash on his top right shoulder but otherwise he seems fine. Steve has never been more grateful to see him.

“Nice timing,” Steve pants, taking up stride next to him.

“You not finding it a little weird that some of these men are in lab coats?” Clint answers instead, nudging a dead body clothed in a white coat and a handgun. Steve frowns as they go further into the base and enter a dome-like clearing with machines he’s never seen before. He has a distant and vague sense of déjà vu --  taking him back to the secret lab where he was injected with the Erksine’s serum and he looks up to a control booth high on the rafters.

“Think we found the science division?” Steve asks distantly.

“Could be. Oh man, Stark is going to be so jealous,” Clint says.

“Scope out the rest of the building, retrieve anything you can find.” Steve orders, taking out the flash drive that has been in his suit pocket and Clint nods, heading back out the way they entered, taking out another bow. Steve takes a breath and makes for a running jump. He steps onto one of the desks and leaps up to catch onto the rafter beams. He gets a strong grip, and swings his legs a few times for some momentum before flipping onto the metal surface with a clang.

The lock on the control booth door gives away at the edge of his shield and he kicks it open easily. The room, unsurprisingly, is empty.

There are chairs set up and a motherboard still active but beeping red and green lights with a large screen in the middle. It blinks at him: PASSCODE DENIED.

Steve frowns, approaching it and considers the drive in his hand for a moment before cautiously inserting it.

The computer immediately starts to scan through files, charts, photos that all move too fast for Steve to catalogue before it transfers itself. Syringes, I.D cards of scientists, line charts, more photos. _Erskine. Steve. Codename  –_

A gun clicks from behind and Steve’s breath catches in his chest.

“Turn around.”

Steve would know that voice anywhere in any lifetime, and he turns slowly.

Bucky has the muzzle of his gun pointed directly between his eyes. He’s still. Face flat and focussed, his metal arm gleaming. There’s faint purpling under his eyes but despite it all, it’s still Bucky. It’s his face and his eyes staring back at him.

Out of all the ways Steve pictured he would find Bucky again, he was never stupid enough to not think it could be something like this. But it doesn’t smother the way his heart swells all at once in sheer, foolish happiness to know that he’s alive, only to crumble when faced with the facts that he doesn’t remember him.

“Bucky,” Steve starts, his throat clicks around a shaky swallow. Bucky’s face shows no recognition over that name. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to say here.

“Give me the file.” Bucky says.

Steve takes a step sideways, covering the drive further from view. Bucky’s aim follows him perfectly and resets itself between his eyes. “I won’t ask again.” The safety is already cocked back.

“Bucky,” Steve tries again. He doesn’t know how much time he has before Clint finishes his search and comes back to meet him.

“I’ve been looking for you all over,” Steve says and for whatever reason, moves forward.

The gunshot he expects doesn’t come. But Bucky’s eyes are still trained on him, even and assessing. He doesn’t blink, expression unchanged and blank. He could take the shot any time he wants. There’s no trigger sign or blip in his face that would give Steve a warning before it happens. “I want to help you Buck.”

“Help me.” Bucky repeats. It’s not phrased like a question.

“Yeah Buck,” Steve says and fights the swell of emotion that’s starting to build somewhere in his core. It’s burning behind his eyelids and making his blood boil.

Bucky’s face melts slowly. Eyes bleeding through with a raw emotion that says too many things. He looks lost, and his mouth twists into something frustrated.

He shoots Steve in the shoulder.

Steve spins from the force and clips his head on the side of the desk as he hits the floor. He can’t see Bucky through the way blood trickles into his eye when he blinks. He doesn’t have to. He knows that he’s taking the file from the computer.

Steve grunts and tries to sit up, putting pressure on his left shoulder. “Buck. Wait, don’t,” he reaches out with his other hand and manages to get a piece of Bucky’s pant fabric and holds on. Bucky pauses, gun still in his flesh hand. “Don’t,” he says again.

He doesn’t know what he’s asking for. _Don’t take it. Don’t go. Don’t leave me again. Don’t do this to me. I don’t think I can keep doing this._

“Stop looking for me Steve,” Bucky says and tugs his leg out of Steve’s weak grip and Steve watches him go and disappear out of the room.

* * *

 

It wasn’t always perfect. They fought a lot.

They fought about how loud Bucky would play the radio or how many jobs he was secretly working behind Steve’s back because winter was around the corner. Steve found out though. He always found out. Bucky was a terrible liar.

Bucky almost burst a blood vessel when Mr. Richardson let slip that Steve snuck out after Bucky specifically told him not to and shoveled the front porch despite the fact he had been coughing up blood and phlegm for three days straight.

They fought over who should have the bigger piece of ham at dinner even though they both argued that they weren’t all that hungry and then called the other one out for lying.

But most of all, they fought about Bucky’s family. Steve hating the distance he felt from them and blaming himself and how much he selfishly loved Bucky.

They took him in and treated him like family, and all he did in return was hold Bucky down from starting his own. He knew they must blame him, even if they denied it themselves. Bucky was handsome. Intelligent in the way that couldn’t be learned. He was strong, a charmer and a natural gentleman. And Steve would feel sick to his stomach when after a visit at the Barnes’, they would come back to their dingy apartment and Bucky would climb on top of him, hard and ready to go. And like clockwork, the guilt would muddle away into nothingness every time Bucky pressed his hot and wet mouth against his.

* * *

 

Steve wishes he could be surprised to see his room already occupied by a welcoming committee.

“You let him go with the drive?” Tony more or less shouts.

It’s the first thing he says to him the second Steve gets released from the hospital and steps onto his floor. His arm is in a sling despite how many times he told Sam he didn’t need it.

“Not the time Stark,” Sam says.

Steve makes a bee-line for the fridge and takes out a carton of cranberry juice, wincing a little to unscrew the lid.

“Oh, by all means, let’s not talk about the fact that highly secure and critical enemy information is currently in the hands of the enemy,” Tony says, throwing his arms up in the air and turns to where Clint and Thor are standing.

“I think saying Steve let him get away is a bit of a stretch. I mean,” Clint indicates to the sling.

“I think,” Steve speaks up, slamming the carton down harder than he intended, “that Steve is standing right here.”

There’s a heavy pause where Sam, Tony and Clint all exchange looks. Thor’s leaning on a pillar, staring at the floor pensively.

Tony clears his throat. “Okay, fine, I’m saying it – “

“We vetoed against that.” Clint says bored.

Tony opens his mouth but Sam gets there first and focusses his serious eyes on Steve. They all do -- minus Thor -- who looks contemplative still and Steve feels a wave of nostalgia washing over him from that time in ’36; when he got cornered by three bigger kids outside of the dancehall. “We think you should take a break.”

Steve stares at Sam, waiting for him to continue before he blinks. “You can’t be serious.”

“Look,” Sam sighs, “I know your track record for taking the bench seat is pretty much non-existent but – “

“But we also don’t trust that you won’t get yourself killed trying to find your boyfriend,” Clint finishes for him and raises his eyebrows when Thor and Sam send him exasperated looks. “What?”

Steve feels his body start to warm and it’s not from embarrassment. Tony rolls his eyes, “right and I was vetoed.”

“HYDRA is quiet for now. And until we hear anything, it’s probably better that you step away for a bit. You’re running on fumes and you’re gonna expire before anything turns up. But I promise, when something does, I won’t keep it from you,” Sam says. He’s doesn’t sound condescending, and that must be why Steve finds it difficult to put up a fight without proving their point.

“You have our word, my friend,” Thor says looking Steve straight in the eye, resolute.

Steve sags and pinches the bridge of his nose. Maybe it’s the combination of being so emotionally drained mixed with the amount of morphine pumping inside of him that makes him agree. Maybe he’s just sick of the conversation.

* * *

 

Steve finds a condo in Brooklyn two days afterwards when he realized he couldn’t be loyal to the deal if he was constantly surrounded by accessible ways to start his search all over again. And he really isn’t in the mood for Sam’s sad eyes so he packs a small bag of his things the moment his shoulder completely heals and takes his motorbike across Brooklyn Bridge.

“Wow, talk about rolling over,” Natasha says after he fills her in on everything. Her voice is echoey and thin, probably on a burner cellphone. Steve huffs, a rueful smile tugging at his lips and he shoulders his phone to open a cabinet already stocked with perishables.

“Huh, well, I guess I know when I’m beat.”

“Yeah you do. But you keep fighting anyway,” Natasha counters.

“Got me there,” Steve rummages for a can opener. “It’s temporary. The best I can hope for is that some piece of information will show itself to help me catch up to him.”

Natasha only hums. “Unlikely for that to happen. He told you he didn’t want you tracking his movements. He’ll only make it more difficult from now on.”

There’s a knock on the door and Steve pauses in trying to open his can of chicken noodle soup. “Steve?” Natasha says warningly.

“I gotta go,” and he hangs up on her, switching his phone for his shield that he left leaning next to the wall. The sane, more rational part of his brain tells him if someone was trying to kill him, they wouldn’t want to give him any warning of it. But he doesn’t risk checking the peep-hole and opens the door by a fraction, half expecting it to be kicked in.

“Hi,” Thor says, a little awkwardly. Steve has to blink a couple of times before opening the door fully. He’s dressed as casual as a demi-god can be, in slacks and a deep red wool trench coat. He raises what’s in his hands. A six-pack balanced on a large box of pizza. “I’ve noticed this is usually how people in Midgard deal with these kinds of situations.”

“How did you get here?” Steve asks dumbly.

Thor frowns just a little. “I flew.” And then, “may I come in?”

* * *

 

“You here to check up on me?” Steve has the courage to ask after his third slice of pizza. Thor is already on his sixth and his eyes slide to Steve’s with a look he can’t pinpoint. It’s rare times like these that Steve remembers the man next to him has been alive for hundreds of years. He respects him, higher than most but something has to be said for being next to someone who is older than how he feels.

“Your team mates think of only your best interests, you should not resent them for that,” Thor says after he’s gotten his food down. “To be a good leader means you must know when it is your turn to be led.”

A large warm hand grips his shoulder and squeezes tightly. “But you are loyal. You have a warrior’s heart. Never be ashamed of that loyalty.”

The tightness in Steve’s chest unravels and takes some of the weight with it. Steve traces a design on the condensation of his beer bottle. He hasn’t opened it yet.

“Is this drink not up to your liking Steven?” Thor asks.

“Beer doesn’t have an effect on me anymore. Serum and,” he makes a gesture, not sure if Thor knows the whole backstory of Project Rebirth and figures it doesn’t matter anyway. “I mostly just drink it for the taste.”

“Ah. I could always bring you some Asgardian mead the next time I return home. Although I must warn you, it has put me in many bouts in my youth.”

The laugh that comes out of Steve shocks him and he stares at Thor with awe. “I think I’d like that.”

Thor grins. The corners of his eyes crunching.

* * *

 

Thor leaves at a half past midnight but decides not to fly back to New York. Opting to take the metro. The picture of seeing Thor take public transit makes Steve chuckle to himself as he gets ready for bed.

* * *

 

It’s the intuitive prickling on the back of Steve’s neck that wakes him up.

He slowly opens his eyes, face smashed into the cool side of his pillow and the eerie stillness of his bedroom is sending warning signs blaring in his brain. It’s quiet enough to be obvious that it’s an intentional silence. Like someone is making sure they’re not heard. Steve breathes out and calculates how far his shield is.

“Don't get up.”

Steve hand spasms underneath the covers, the breath he released refusing to know how to come back in. The carpet absorbs Bucky’s footsteps towards the bed and Steve rolls over to sit up.

Bucky isn’t dressed in his fight gear but he's still in all covert black. Jeans and a black jacket that’s zipped up to the collar. His metal hand is holding something and when he upturns it, it’s the flash drive. It’s hard to look at him. Steve can’t shake the feeling that he’s looking at a warped mirror image of his dead best friend. But Steve knows the blip in the configuration. It’s his eyes. The light in them is hidden or suppressed. Or worse, has been snuffed out. Even more haunted than the Bucky who barely made it out of the HYDRA facility back in 44.

“Nothing I don’t already know,” Bucky says flatly and places it on the bedside counter.

Steve feels oddly exposed and awkward, still dressed in a worn shirt and sleep pants. It’s as though they’re both in a play and he’s forgotten his next lines. Bucky stares at him, mouth slack. Even in the minimal light coming from street lights outside, his eyes are expressionless and Steve doesn’t know what to say to keep him here.

He picks the drive up, turning it over in his hand. “Why are you giving this to me?”

It takes a moment for Bucky to respond, but his shoulders fidget under his jacket. “There’s information in it that you need to see to understand some things about me.”

It’s the longest sentence Bucky has said to him. It still doesn’t make sense. Bucky must read his confusion. “To make you stop. I want,” his right hand clenches and unclenches at his side and he stops all together. Like the word and idea – to want – tastes weird on his tongue. “I want you to stop following me.”

And it’s a cruel, twisted joke that the one decision Bucky wants to claim for himself is something Steve can’t give him.

“I can’t do that Buck. I told you. And you,” Steve throws his legs over the side of his bed, “you coming here has to mean something.”

“It means this is the last time you’ll see me again before you force me to put you down.”

Steve shakes his head, getting to his feet. “You won’t hurt me Bucky.”

Bucky’s face changes. A faint, barely there look of bemusement. Steve catches himself. “Okay, you won’t kill me then.”

He smiles ruefully and it’s painful to see the downward twist of his mouth. He speaks simply and almost sad, like he feels sorry for Steve. “You know nothing.”

“I know you,” Steve salvages, presses it into Bucky desperately. Desperate for him to believe it too and validate his sanity because he’s so alone in this.

Bucky’s stare reverts back to its natural blank canvas but Steve has seen others to know this expression is practiced. It’s a safety net. “You know a face, Steve. You don’t know me. You won’t like to find out what he became.” He turns for the window that leads to the fire escape and Steve, reckless as the day he could stand on two feet grabs him back by his sleeve but doesn’t turn him around.

Bucky doesn’t strike him like Steve expected him to. But the left arm he holds onto whirrs under his fingertips.

“What if I already know? And I don’t care?”

“Then you are as much of a monster as me.”

“Bucky. Please. Stay, you – “ _you can’t keep doing this. You can’t come in and out of my life and expect me to do nothing about it._ “I – “

“Want to help me,” Bucky recites, back still facing him. “I don’t want you to.” And there it is again. Want. Bucky exercising his will to say no. To choose and who is Steve to tell him he can choose anything else on this earth but this.

Steve lets go. Bucky lifts a foot to the window sill, hands perched for support before –

“Why did you do it?”

It’s not a question. Not exactly.

When Steve says nothing, Bucky turns his head around. “I could have let you drown. I wanted to. I failed. And then you -- ” his jaw ticks and his eyes narrow. It’s so unlike the Bucky from before the war. Steve doesn’t know if he’s doing it on purpose to make a point. “ _Why_?”

The words find themselves before Steve can try and piece them together himself. “It’s what we do Bucky. We come for each other when the other needs to be pulled outta the fire. No matter what. I can’t give up on you. You never did for me. I’m not starting now.”

Bucky’s contorted face unravels. Splits open like a swollen gorge and it’s nothing less than heartbreaking to witness. Steve is transported back to five months ago, staring up at the horrified face above him. Fist raised right before he lost consciousness and fell from the burning helicarrier.

By some miracle, or maybe the gods have finally deemed it time to stop with the cruel torture, Bucky plants his foot back on the floor. His eyes squint. “I don’t…” he says softly that Steve barely hears it.

Steve wants to go over to him. He’s not far and it would be easy to make those few steps and holds him close like he’s been dying to ever since he saw him through the gun smoke across the bridge. Bucky’s name heavy on his tongue.

Bucky’s grip on the windowsill tightens, and his metal fingers crack the wall. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.” _With you_ hangs between them. Steve nods.

“Me either Buck. But we can figure that out together. Will you,” he pauses, scared of the thought of ruining this. If his words will push him away forever this time. “Will you stay? Please.”

He doesn’t move. Barely even looks like he’s breathing and Steve half expects for this to be it. For Bucky to vault through the open window and disappear into the shadows. And it would all be Steve’s fault all over again. Time and time again like a loop that won’t let Steve keep Bucky in his life because he always messes up. Isn’t close enough or fast enough to catch him. Isn’t smart enough to find a way to make him stay.

Bucky blinks once and turns to look over his shoulder into the night for a moment, then back at Steve, hesitant –

“Okay.”

* * *

 

The expressionless void on Bucky’s face is the strongest reminder that this man is different than what his brain tells him. It’s what burns, because Steve has seen every expression on that face. His anger, happiness, flirtatiousness and fear.

Fear was common. Fear when the rent was tight and Steve coughed and wheezed like he had TB. Fear that they would have enough money for rent but nothing for food.

Which is why Steve knew what that expression meant as they stood on the plummeting helicarrier. His eyes saying what his mouth couldn’t. 

It was smeared across his face when Steve stepped forward, heart hurting more than the bullet wounds in his thighs and gut. The stab wound in his shoulder. They all meant nothing compared to the risk. The risk of losing Bucky again and he knew he could do it. No one was holding on tight to a speeding train. No one was falling. At least not yet.

Steve said his name brokenly. The name shattering out of his mouth and the look he got was equal.

Steve didn’t know what hurt more.

Bucky looking at him and not knowing him.

Or Bucky looking at him and being torn and wrecked by the fact that he did. Body sagging over the weight of trying to remember. But every ounce of his consciousness constructed to make him forget. The war in his eyes.

* * *

 

Bucky is asleep on one of the chairs Steve keeps at the corner of his room, arms crossed and head upright. It’s another contrast to how Steve remembers Bucky sleeping. All loose limbs and open mouth letting out warm drool that equally grossed Steve out and still made him grin like an idiot. It took a lot of coaxing for him to finally shut his eyes. He mostly stared at Steve and gave brisk answers to the questions Steve asked –-

(“Would you like to change?” “No.”

“I can sleep on the couch if you want.” “Here is fine.”

“What do you want me to call you if Bucky is --”  “It doesn’t matter.”)

He nodded off eventually, the bags under his eyes were pronounced enough. Steve’s not sure if it's trust that let him give into sleep. Or if he just knew that if there was one person on this earth who would rather die than hurt him, it would be Steve.

“Aren’t you not supposed to be doing anything you know, H-Y-D-R-A related?” Bruce says over webcam. He has to be somewhere far on the east coast because it’s nighttime for him and Steve knows he has a small window of time before the birds start to sing and Bucky wakes up.

“I was hoping you could keep this between us.” Steve whispers.

“What are friends for,” Bruce says dryly.

Steve smiles tightly. “So?” He’s angled the camera away from a still sleeping Bucky.

Bruce clears his throat and takes a sip from his mug. “Basically, the drive is a record of how the serum effected your genes as compared to the serum Zola made for Barnes. These blood samples are dissimilar. But this blueprint is something I’ve never seen before. If I’m translating this correctly, then it’s a memory altercation machine.”

Steve’s blood freezes. He’s pretty sure he stopped breathing.

“—shows the memory damage to his brain due to the machine. How it operates.”

“How does it operate?” Steve asks briskly.

Bruce winces and looks like he’s deciding his next words very carefully. “Painfully. The only notes that make a reference to it is from the early sixties. The general consensus is that the longer he’s out of … cryostasis, the higher the chance his memories would start to reform. It's due to the serum and how it regenerates the cellular structures and healing processes. But of course, it’s just a theory. They never wanted to risk it.”

“So there’s a possibility.” Steve says. Hopes the desperation isn’t too obvious.

“There’s a possibility,” and Bruce looks him in the eye through the monitor. “But even if he remembers Cap, it’s what he chooses to do with those memories after that matters.”

* * *

 

**1940**

“Bucky. It’s not funny.”

Bucky had his face smashed into the pillow, trying to stifle his laughs but he was making a piss poor job of it. Steve wanted to punch his shoulder but then he also wanted to bite it.

After a good minute, Bucky turned his head to the side. Blue eyes sparkling with mirth and a little red rimmed. Steve had about five seconds before his forced scowl turned into a grin. It was kind of funny.

“We broke the headboard.” Bucky said, his mouth curved. “We fuckin’ broke the headboard.”

“I can see that Buck. Now who’s gonna pay for it?”

“I mean,” Bucky sighed and rolled onto his back. The sheets pooled around their feet and Bucky sat up to pull them back up around them. Steve kind of wished he didn’t. He liked the view. “You were the force behind it and all.”

“Guess I don’t know my own strength,” Steve said dryly and Bucky wiggled his eyebrows in the way he knew made Steve roll his eyes.

“Always knew ya had it in you punk,” and Bucky folded an arm behind his head, sighed again and fixed his gaze at their ceiling and the fan that spun there. “Could kill for a smoke right about now – metaphorically,” he added quickly when Steve glared.

“You’re a damn liar Barnes. I saw your pack in your pocket last week.”

“What can I say, you stress me out.” Bucky joked and burst out laughing when Steve jumped him and straddled his hips. Bucky could have fought himself out of Steve’s grip right then and there, but he loved being pinned down by Steve.

“If you keep wrestlin’ me and movin’ like that Stevie, you’re only gonna get me goin’ again.” Bucky said, and Steve scoffed. Hands clasped around Bucky’s wrists and pushing them into the mattress.

“Was that supposed to stop me?”

“Nah,” Bucky said looking up at Steve and his eyes softened a little. “I’m easy.”

Steve quirked an eyebrow.

“Only for you.” Bucky finished and Steve felt his heart jump in his ribcage and Bucky’s grin flashed large on his face. “C’mere.”

* * *

 

The smell of coffee is the first thing to pull Steve back to consciousness. His neck at a weird angle and he winces waking up, rubbing a hand on the tender skin there.

It takes all of five seconds for him to realize he nodded off on a stiff chair with an ever stiffer back. It takes another two to almost get whiplash for how fast he sits up and looks around the room.

Bucky’s not there and neither is his computer.

The panic that pumps in his chest dies as fast as it came up when he hears the metallic jingle of cutlery coming from the kitchen down the hall and he breathes, getting to his feet and finding them wobbly.

Bucky is sitting at the kitchen table with Steve’s laptop. The black jacket he had worn is hung behind him with a mug of coffee steaming next to his left hand. A large blueprint is nailed to the wooden counter. He doesn’t acknowledge that Steve’s awake.

“Hey,” Steve says, padding over to him and making loud enough movements so Bucky can know he’s coming from his ten o’clock. Bucky says nothing when Steve comes to his side.

“You picked a poor apartment,” Bucky says after a whole six minutes of silence. “I deactivated the cameras. No bugs.” He sounds almost bored and closes the laptop and still makes no eye contact with Steve.

Steve stares at him, hovering at the corner of his table. “Cameras?”

The look Bucky gives him is familiar, dubious. Just like the one he gave him in 37’ when Steve showed him where he hid his house keys _.  (“Is this supposed to be clever? Christ in heaven, Stevie, sometimes I wonder how you survive without me.”)_

“Thanks,” Steve adds and makes his way over to the coffee maker and pours himself a cup.

“Your team doesn’t trust you.”

Steve considers making some breakfast. Maybe oatmeal or eggs with tomatoes. “It’s a bit more complicated than that.”

“Because of me.”

Steve almost drops the egg carton from out of the fridge and turns to Bucky who is staring at him suspiciously.

“They don’t know you like I do Bucky. That’s all it is.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth moves up slightly, a pitying look. “You want to help me, correct?”

Steve could sink to the floor with relief. “Yeah Buck,” the tightness in his chest is something he hasn’t felt in years. “Anything you want.”

Bucky nods sharp and points a solid finger to the map on the table. “There’s a base in California.”

They’re in Brooklyn. Steve doesn’t point it out. “A mission.” Steve says instead, hollowly and rests the egg carton on the ledge.

“Yes. What did you think I meant.” Steve knows that he’s doing this on purpose. He knows exactly what Steve had meant but if there’s an oppourtunity to destroy more remnants of HYDRA and pummel more of the people responsible, well, Steve has a lot of anger he needs to release that doesn’t involve punching bags.

“Before we start, are you hungry?” Steve asks, and gets a pan out to heat.

Bucky shrugs.

* * *

 

Steve sets their empty plates into the sink and tries not to let his hands ball into fists. “Bucky –“

“It’s the smarter plan. You’re being irrational.”

 _I don’t care._ The words: _“I don’t want you to go in there alone first without me, not when I just got you back”_ and “ _I don’t like it_ ” all seem too cruel. He has no right to order or tell Bucky what to do when he’s been ordered all this time against will. And the other: _“it’s too dangerous”_ sounds silly in his head, because when have they ever not been reckless. But still --

“We can go in together,” Steve tries to reason and hears the scrape of his chair as Bucky gets to his feet, rolling the map back up.

“I need you to clear the base level. Not be a bodyguard.”

He gives a sideways glance to Steve and it’s that expression again --  that was taught and given to him by HYDRA. “I go in, take out ever personnel on sight, meet you at the rendezvous point and together,” he stresses, giving Steve a pointed look, “we burn down the base.”

And what can Steve do to stop him. He couldn’t stop Bucky from enlisting back after Pearl Harbour without him and he couldn’t stop him from stealing medicine when everyone on their block thought that winter was the winter that finally took Steve out.

Bucky picks up his jacket and slips it on. “Be ready.”

* * *

 

Bucky watches as Steve hot wires a sleek truck. He’s strapped with the same weapons he wore on the bridge all those months ago with probably a whole lot more in places Steve can’t see this time of night.

“Head east on the 401 until I say. There’s a warehouse.” He says the moment Steve pulls out onto the highway. The shield sits as a barrier between them and Bucky has his gaze out the window flipping his knife between his fingers. The last time Steve saw it, Bucky had tried to stick him with it. Several times.

“What’s in the warehouse?” Steve asks. Bucky answers back a minute later and his eyes stare at Steve through the rear view mirror.

“A fighter jet I took from Switzerland.” The tone suggests he doesn’t want to hear any more questions about it, but Steve can barely stop himself.

“You stole a fighter jet?”

If Steve didn’t know any better, he’d think Bucky looked smug. His lips twist just barely and says nothing.  

* * *

 

Taking out the base turns out to be just as simple as Bucky had made it sound, but the amount of shouts and explosions coming from all around him is starting to make Steve nervous. He types as fast as he can in the laboratory bunker and swallows down the feeling of helplessness knowing Bucky is fighting alone in the chaos.

The data moves fast and transfers itself into one of the hard drives Steve has implanted in one of its servers, but it’s not fast enough. The instant the encoding is complete, Steve is already running with it clenched in his gloved fist and sprinting back to the loudest of the commotion. The smell of smoke leads the way.

The only warning Steve gets is the whistle of metal splitting the air in half and he raises his shield just in time to block the knife aimed at his forehead. It collides with a loud clang and clatters to the floor. Steve waits until the sensation of having his heart lodged in his throat settles down to something relatively normal and lowers it. Bucky is staring at him, eyes wild and furious. He’s bleeding from a wound on his head that’s dampening his hair and his left fist is smeared red. 

“Buc—“

Bucky is already moving, picking up a left over rifle from a dead HYDRA agents body and raises the barrel upwards and brushes past Steve. But not before giving Steve a piercing hard look that makes Steve feel nailed down by the chill of it.

 

* * *

 

 

Luckily, Bucky doesn’t take the jet and leave without him, but the stony silence is still there. Steve lets Bucky pilot and holds the thin metal device in his hands and doesn’t know why he hates this silence more than the other ones he’s come to know. Hates that he can see a difference in the two.

 _(“I’m sorry”)_ doesn’t make sense and probably won’t mean anything anyway if he did say it. Steve figures he has a lot to be sorry for when it comes to Bucky these days. Wouldn’t know where to start or if there will ever be an end to it all.

 

* * *

 

 

“Will you let me take a look at that?” Are the first words to come out of Steve’s mouth.

It’s three in the morning and it’s hard to not notice the sluggish movements Bucky has been making ever since they found a place to stay for just the one night. It’s in a cabin lodge dingy enough not to need I.D to book a night if you had enough money for it.

Bucky has his back to him and he’s shirtless. A gun lays next to the bed space beside him facing away. “Fine.” He grits out.

Steve walks towards him slowly and comes around to sit close to the side where blood has dried in his hair. Bucky stares forward, emotionless. He’s seen so many emotions on that face – an angry Bucky at his family and the world and sometimes often, Steve, for ( _“bein’ a big dumb jerk! Who are ya tryin’ to impress all the time huh? You’re killin’ me here –“_ ). A happy, grinning Bucky with pink curling lips because _(“guess who got a bonus at work for bein’ such a swell guy? C’mon Steve, drinks on me!”)_

The gash on his head isn’t very deep but it’s bleeding refuses to stop. Steve uses one of his undershirts that he folded on his bed and applies pressure on it. It’s the closest they’ve been since the helicarrier. The only sound in the room comes from the tick of an old grandfather clock nestled in a corner. Steve keeps mind of it. He has to keep the cloth held there for at least ten minutes. 

Bucky starts to sag once they pass the seven minute mark, shoulders losing its rigid posture and he leans on Steve a little. Bare skin teasing Steve’s also bare shoulder.

“I...” Bucky says, voice croaky from disuse and he sounds distant. Like his mind is somewhere else far away, “There was a mission.”

Steve holds his breath and waits. He waits a whole other minute patiently. “1972. The target was… small.”

His words are beginning to slur and Steve wants to tell him to stop and rest. But Bucky’s eyebrows are furrowed. When he laughs, it’s a hollow thing. “He was blonde. Died of asphyxiation.”

“They found me.” The heaviness on the word ‘they’ makes it clear who he’s talking about.

“Didn’t make the rendezvous point. I…was in the sewers. Unstable. From -- ” Bucky’s metal fingers curl on its place on his thigh. “I didn’t know it was because of you.”

Bucky closes his eyes and shifts away from Steve’s touch. The white fabric is stained a dark red and Steve wants to reach out and check to make sure the bleeding has stopped but right now, he can do nothing else than to stare at Bucky who moves up the bed and away from Steve and curls into a ball atop the sheets. His body angled away.

The gun lays there between them pointed at Bucky. Steve grips the sheets tight.

 

* * *

 

 

**1941**

 

“Steve, you gotta stop walkin’ up Glendon street,” Bucky said after Steve stopped coughing and was rubbing firm circles on his back.  “You know they got nasty construction day in and out –

"I know, I know Buck,” Steve wheezed and tried at a smile. Bucky frowned. “But I had to get to work on time and it's the fastest –

“It makes you sound like you’re going to suffocate. I don’t like it one bit –“

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky doesn’t wake up screaming with night terrors like Bruce had warned him about or like Steve expected after reading the reports over and over.

Bucky wakes up shivering. Skin pale and translucent looking from an invisible cold Steve can’t stop. He shivers like Steve did every winter, even though the fireplace had been crackling through the night.

He wakes up dazed and confused, blinking sluggishly until everything on his face dampens down into something hot and hateful.

When he touches the side of his head and his palm comes out blank and dry, he acts like Steve’s not even a living presence in the room with him and gets to his feet for the shower mechanically.

Steve tries not to stare at his phone that had been buzzing all night.

**_NUMBER RESTRICTED: compromised and can’t make stark tower. need you in my place by the next twenty four hours._ **

* * *

 

Bucky’s half-dressed when he steps out of the shower, hair curling at his nape and wet. His black pants are the only article of clothing he has on and it clings to his thighs as he walks towards the bed where the rest of his gear lies. Steve takes a steady breath and –

“You have a mission.”

Steve blinks, mouth still open with lost words. Bucky pulls his shirt over his head and continues to get dressed and strap up. “You have to go.” He adds like he’s giving a basic mission report.

And the thing is, Steve doesn’t want to. With everything in his core and his bones, he doesn’t want to leave him again. But the rational side of his brain, the one that kept him up for the majority of the night is telling him he has to. There are people’s lives on the line. Innocent lives and he has a job to do in protecting those lives. Steve watches as Bucky finally turns around to slip his knife into the hilt sheath on his right leg.

“Last night,” Steve starts, tentatively, testing out the waters and it’s hard to ignore the way Bucky’s stance goes on the defensive. “You remembered.” Bucky turns his back on Steve again and checks the clips in his array of guns, keeping himself busy from the conversation. Steve gets to his feet and takes one single step. “Is there…anything else?” Bucky straightens to shoot a glare at him before going back to his things.

He doesn’t have much time. They covered their tracks well but knowing Tony, he might get their location at any time and he can’t risk that.

“Come with me.” Steve says, voice soft and Bucky movements get harsher and more violent.

“Maybe there’s something we can do to – “ he doesn’t want to say help. He feels like he’s in some endless torture play, forever in a loop. Pushing a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down and crush him again and again.

“They can’t.” Bucky answers and finishes loading the last of his guns and clips it to the strap on his back.

“Buck, there’s always a cha—“

“You’re not fucking listening,” Bucky snaps and directs his glare fully onto Steve. “It’s you. It’s my body not being put on ice anymore. It’s the serum.” He rants and then his mouth clips shut. His nostrils flare and Steve feels dizzy with the information.

“The serum is accelerating my brain’s healing.” And then he focuses on the floor between their feet. Black boots and bare feet. Steve licks his lips.

“That’s good isn’t it?” Steve whispers and all he gets is Bucky’s blue eyes meeting his and they’re sad.

“It’s worse.”

The weight of it sits heavy on Steve’s chest. He shouldn’t be able to speak but he breaks. “Bucky. If this is how it’s going to be. This, this _goddamn hell_. I don’t know how I’ll—“ Steve steels himself and tries at a steady breath. “But I’m not stopping. I’m not giving up on you.” He comes forward, close until there is only an inch between their chests and he places a confident hand on Bucky’s left shoulder. Bucky’s eyes look unsure, tired and worn.

“Come with me,” Steve says again.

Bucky closes his eyes.

* * *

 

Steve can’t think of a time where Bucky wasn’t there.

In his peripheral or in his direct line of sight. Under his arm or pressed close to his chest when it got too cold during the transition from November to December.

Even when he was so poor it was a miracle he could afford dinner. When he could barely pay his chunk of the rent, despite Bucky working extra hours to cover him when his scoliosis acted up. When he had no family anymore. No parents. Not a drop of health left to stop the blood he coughed up into an overused handkerchief that wasn’t even his but Bucky’s mothers.

Sometimes he’d lay awake and stew in the resentment and anger over his body and sickliness that made Bucky come running. But Bucky still sat on the edge of his bed and pretended like nothing was wrong. Caught him up on the Dodgers games they both missed ‘cause he would never go without him and brought him back some fish scraps from down at the docks.

He had nothing. Only a bright and supportive Bucky who tried so hard to hide how worried and scared he was when winter was around the corner. And it was worth it.

 

* * *

 

“They come from Muspelheim,” Thor announces like they’re all supposed to know what that means.

The thick silence is followed by blank faces across the room.

“Muspelheim. One of the nine realms.” Thor reiterates.

“Great. More aliens.” Steve sighs and runs a hand through his hair.

“Well it’s not HYDRA, so there’s that brightside,” Tony says sarcastically, sitting on a stool and wearing a one of his repulsor gloves. He’s in a good mood – which means he’s putting it on to show how not comfortable he is about sharing a space with the Winter Soldier.

Clint hasn’t stopped watching Bucky ever since they entered Stark Tower earlier on and even when he isn’t in the room, Steve knows where he favoured his vantage points. Knowing Bucky, he’s positive he does too.

It makes Steve want to punch something. Or punch Clint. Because here Bucky is, trusting him enough to stay in a highly secure and monitored premises and he can’t even be granted the same level of trust from his team mates. It had been at least two and a half hours since they settled into Steve’s floor and Bucky hasn’t lashed out on anyone yet. It took some convincing to have him leave some of his weapons in Steve’s room and Steve’s not entirely sure he’s without any. He’s not going to ask.

“I can assure you the fire giants of Muspelheim are fearsome. They come from fire and they are fire.” Thor says severely and it says a lot to what Steve has been facing ever since he woke up that he doesn’t flinch at the word ‘fire giants.’ 

“How the hell did they get here anyway?” Steve asks.

Thor looks peeved and shifts oddly. “It appears my brother thought they would be an interesting gift.”

A beat. And then -- “Of course.” Tony rolls his eyes. “Fucking hilarious.”

“I swear to god if I ever see that piece of – “

“ _We get it Clint.”_

Steve sighs and looks around at the joined four of them. “Banner?”

Tony scoffs. “I wish. He’s still in Cambodia. I think the five of us can handle this. Stop, drop and roll right?” He makes a quick glance at Bucky, who is still and silent at Steve’s side. Steve turns to him and Bucky flits calm eyes on him.

“I don’t think – “

Tony’s eyes harden. It’s clear what he means is _: like hell I’m leaving an ex-brainwashed assassin in my home with Pepper on premises._ Bucky nods curtly. _It’s okay,_ said in the gesture.

“Then let’s suit up.” Clint says from his spot on the couch, arrow twirling between his fingers.

* * *

 

It turns out there isn’t a special way to dispose of the fire giants. But Steve is still reeling from the blast of intense heat he blocked that came from one of the now disposed giants mouth.

His throat is burning and scrapped raw from the smoke inhalation and lightning is crackling down around where they fight, splitting the ozone. Thor positions himself high on a tower and incinerates the majority of them with calculated hits. It would almost feel like old times, knowing Bucky is somewhere on a roof covering his six except for how it’s not.

Tony swoops in and tackles a giant to the ground and hits it with the repulsors before taking back off into the skies, leaving the ground fighting back with Clint.

“Fuckers are dropping fast.” Clint says, and notches another bow through a skull.

Steve disposes of one neatly with the edge of his shield and turns to Clint just as another giant comes up behind him. It’s moving fast for how large it is and it long arms ignite into rods of fire. Clint must sense the heat signature coming behind and he spins –

It drops heavy by a sniper shot to the face and sizzles as it hits the ground. Steve and Clint turn to the source of it just as Bucky lands with a crash on the roof of a car. The windows break. Another lone giant comes barrelling at him and Steve makes to run for him. Bucky twists out of the way as the giant tries to strike him. The giant sets itself on fire and reaches out again, roaring angrily. Bucky grabs it by the throat with his left hand, sweat dripping on his face with his teeth bared. His arm flickers light and static just as he throws the body aside, flying a feet away. When it makes contact to the floor, its fire snuffs out, dazed. Bucky aims his rifle and fires three times.

“Holy shit.” Tony’s voice comes from the com-link.

Bucky lowers the gun and jumps off the car to walk toward them through the smoke and fire. The sounds of police cars and fire trucks are getting louder, tires screeching around corners.

He looks unhurt, minus the sweat on his face and collar. His left arm is scorched and black. Clint looks at a loss of words by the time Bucky stands next the two of them.

“We should get out of here,” Steve finally finds his voice and his sense. The police and Bucky are an issue he hasn’t had time to figure out yet. If they even are police. Steve doesn’t think he’ll ever know any more.

* * *

 

Tony wants to celebrate with throwing a mini pizza party once everyone gets washed up and settled back in the tower. “Pepper’s dealing with press. She knows it’s not my forte.”

Steve watches Bucky turn to make a beeline for the elevator from the corner of his eye and then looks back to Sam who is joined with the rest of the team, plus Agent Hill who meets him with soft eyes.

“I think I’m going to call it a night.”

* * *

  
  
Bucky’s dressed in Steve’s running clothes when Steve walks into the living room.

“I’m not going to run. You don’t have to keep checking up on me.” Bucky says, sounding a little irritated. Steve leans on one of the pillars, feels clumsy. Now that Bucky is a presence in his life again, he has to relearn a few things about this new person.

“It’s not that,” it kind of is, “I thought maybe I can make something. For us.”

Bucky stares at him.

“If you’re hungry. After fights I’m usually starving.”

It’s a quiet and frail thing, but Steve knows that sound was a laugh. “Okay.”

* * *

 

Steve finishes making up dinner and scoops equal portions onto two plates. When he places Bucky’s in front of him, Bucky’s staring at the wooden counter top pensively, deep in thought.

He doesn’t make for his fork. After four bites, Steve sets his own down. “Buck?”

Bucky tilts his head, stares at the still steaming plate of pasta. “I’ve never saved anyone before.”

Steve grapples with the war inside his head at that. He’s been struggling with divulging more information about their lives together before it all went to hell. Of reminding Bucky of more memories stolen from him. But then, Steve knows he deserves to know. To have a piece back of a life where he was happy and untouched by hands that came to hurt him. The fork in his hand feels like it’s about to embed itself into his palm from how hard he’s clenching it. He’s angry. He’s so angry he thinks he can die from it because it’s so untrue and all he wants right now is to kill everyone responsible for the look on Bucky’s face now. For reaching into his head and remaking him for such a long time.  
  
“Yes you have,” he blurts out, staring at his whitened knuckles. Bucky turns but Steve can’t allow himself to do the same. “You saved your neighbour when he was getting beat up by an older kid,” and once he starts he can’t stop. “You stopped a soldier from bleeding out in France and talked to him while Jim stitched him up.”   
  
And then he says, foolishly or maybe desperately, he doesn't know the difference anymore these days. "You saved me."  He doesn’t expect the blow that those words give him, but it hits him square in the gut from the meaning of it. How it means almost everything: _you saved me from drowning. From catching TB. You saved me from the war even though I got in any way. You tried and you tried. You saved me the second we met in 1923. I don’t think I’d be alive without you. You saved me when I wasn't looking and the one time it was my turn, I never was good enough to save you._  
  
When Steve gets the courage to lift his head up, it looks like Bucky heard it all but he’s smiling. Small by the soft way the corner of his mouth quirks up and the fact that he says nothing, for once, doesn’t hurt anymore. It’s enough. He gets to his feet and hesitates, as though he’s holding back the intent of doing or saying something. Whatever it is, the intent dies and he’s already walking out of the room and down the hall. 

* * *

 

When the metal floor of the helicarrier groaned and gave out from underneath him, Steve was delirious enough not to find the irony that the second he broke through to Bucky, he was already falling. It could have happened in a dream.

It’s hazy – the memory of it all. But what’s clear was the choice to drop the shield into the Potomac. Taking a breath, believing it to be one of his few last remaining ones and rocking back on his heels. Weak, tired, ( _so damn tired_ ) and heart hurting from reaching out time again only to keep failing. Telling Bucky he wasn’t going to fight him. That he’d rather die.

That was it.

The end of Captain America with the shedding of his helmet and abandonment of his shield.

He let it all go into the river just has he expected he would go too. Buried deep into its depths if it meant he could save Bucky.

And if not. He thought, distantly, it was his turn to fall.

Steve doesn't remember hitting the water.

He remembers the swooping feeling in his belly that was dulled by the bullet wound there but still, made him think about Coney Island and the cyclone.

Steve remembered thinking, right before he blacked out, _I should hold my breath now_.

He also remembered that he didn't care if he did. The water would split him in half anyway.

 

* * *

 

The sight of Bucky laying on Steve’s bed is a sight Steve didn't expect walking into his bedroom. His eyes are closed but it’s obvious he’s awake.

The mattress is stiff when he takes a seat. He wants to apologize. For reminding Bucky of the things he may or may not ever get back. The words are sitting at the back of his throat –

“I just have his face.”

Steve twists around. Bucky’s eyes are still closed and his hands are folded neatly over his chest. He could be meditating.

“You know that’s not true.”

A scoff. “How do you know what I know?” Bucky asks, and his eyes open slowly. “I don’t.”

Steve can’t bear looking at him at this point. He knows this feeling, even though he hasn’t felt it in years. Frustrated tears and bone filled sadness and he can’t let himself give into it. He has to be strong for him.

And it’s cruel. Because even though he’s not an inch away, Steve thinks he’ll always mourn Bucky. The Bucky who threw a casual arm over his dingy shoulder and saluted him goodbye in Brooklyn with a charming smile.

"It might take years.” Bucky continues. “Maybe never, for it to come back."  
  
_It doesn’t matter._ He wants to say. But it’s wrong. Because it does and it doesn’t all at the same time. Nothing makes sense any more. “It’s not about me Buck.” Steve croaks out, throat tightening.  “I --" _I love every you there is._  

Bucky turns his head to him, finally, cushioned on the pillow and he looks like he’s been crying. Or has been on the knife’s edge of it. He shifts to the side and offers space. Steve moves and then pauses, giving Bucky time to change his mind. He doesn’t.

Steve settles in close to him on the bed and leaves a comfortable space between them until Bucky shuts his eyes again. He puts his metal arm on the jut of Steve’s hip. Steve places his warm hand on the plated wrist.

 

* * *

 

Bucky’s been avoiding him. It’s getting hard not to notice.

It made Steve have a mild panic attack when it first started and he couldn’t find Bucky anywhere in the tower. Only to come back to his floor and find Bucky there like he never left and acting as though he'd been around and close this whole time. Steve never asks where he goes and stops trying to find reasons to be upset about it. He wasn’t exactly planning to keep Bucky isolated from the outside world.

But it’s when they’re in the same room that Steve knows it’s something else. He leave the room the second he hears Steve’s footfalls come close, or he’ll stop eating whatever is on his plate when Steve enters the kitchen for a bottle of water.

So it’s a complete accident when Steve runs into him in the garage, looking to find Tony but finding Bucky instead, working with a destroyed car that Steve was sure wasn’t that damaged the last time he saw it.

Bucky doesn’t make to leave but he goes back to fixing what has started to smoke under the hood. Something in his jaw ticks.

“I can go.” Steve offers.

Bucky shuts the hood down hard and locks eyes with him from their distance.

“Do you want to go?” Bucky says, a little harshly.

Steve takes a step and the shutters fall behind Bucky’s eyes. He stops. “You’ve been avoiding me all week Buck.”

Bucky laughs darkly, and moves to the side of the Mercedes that has several fist looking dents. “Doctor’s orders,” he mumbles more to himself but Steve hears it anyway. When he opens his mouth to ask more, Bucky beats him to it. Words calloused. Like he wants to get it out in the open so then Steve can just leave.

“When you’re around, some of the old stuff comes through stronger,” Bucky says. “It’s why I stayed away before.” He pauses. “Not that I thought I might kill you. Banner said something about brain overload. Might be better to get distance for a bit.” He shoots Steve a look that says: _and you’re doing it now, so beat it._

Steve doesn’t know how Bucky is communicating with Bruce when no one has been able to get a hold of him for a while and it opens up a new realm of realization that Bucky has been keeping things from him. That there are several things he could be doing in regards to his recovery that have nothing to do with Steve.

To say he’s at a loss for words would be an understatement. A gross one at that. And at this point, Steve is so used to the feeling that all he does is nod and go back out the way he came. 

 

* * *

 

“Now, don’t freak out,” are the first words Sam says as soon as Steve comes back from his run. He’s soaking wet after calling it in early when the heavens opened above and released a downpour.

Of course, that gives the opposite effect. Steve stops in his tracks, water bottle in hand. “What happened?”

“Natasha showed up. Sort of out of nowhere,” Sam says on a wince. “Startled Barnes – woah, woah, wait, calm down! Jesus!” Sam blocks Steve’s way and is almost knocked over. “You’re like a human bull – “

“Are they okay?” And Sam figures there’s no possible way to stop Steve if he tried and settles for just walking at his side as they get to Steve’s floor.

“Well, considering the fact that -- okay, or you can just ignore me,” Sam finishes lamely as Steve pushes the door open.

Besides the knocked over table and toppled chairs on the floor among a pair of heels and knife, no one’s dead.

Bucky is standing across from Natasha with his back to the wall and cradling his left elbow. Natasha sitting on one of the upright chairs and her foot is jiggling, legs crossed and in a dress wearing stockings. The easiness that began to creep onto Bucky’s face gradually is completely gone. He looks exactly the same from when he first turned to Steve unmasked.

He can’t exactly blame them. He did try to kill her the last time they met. Shot her and almost gunned her down before Steve got there just in time. And she almost garroted him.

“Hey fellas,” she says easily, “welcome to the party.” She stands up and walks to the door to retrieve her heels but doesn’t put them on.

“Nat – “

“Do you want to walk me to my door? I think chivalry was a thing in those days,” she teases up at Steve and he knows a hint when he sees one. Bucky drops his hold on his elbow, eyes still on her.

“Natalia.” It’s a warning.

“C’mon,” she says and takes Steve by the arm and out the door. Sam hesitates before mumbling something intelligible and dismisses himself to his room on Steve’s floor as Natasha physically drags him out the door. Bucky’s eyes burning a hole in his back.

As soon as they’re out of ear shot, she lets go of his arm. “Keeping secrets there aren’t you Steve. Thought you were honest.”

“Natasha,” he hisses, “what the hell was – “

“We had a little altercation.”

“Oh sure, I guess I should be thankful there wasn’t a knife sticking out of anybody.”

“Not that we didn’t try – “

“Nat, please.”

“We just talked.”

Steve stops walking altogether and she does the same after a few more steps of her own and turns full body to him. Steve’s look is flat.

“Talked.” He jabs a thumb behind him. “That, was talking.”

Natasha shrugs, like it can’t be helped.

Steve knows it’s useless to try and read her. Wouldn’t know if she was lying or telling the truth if she wanted to make it hard for him. “So what did he tell you?” Steve’s not positive if she’ll tell him. If it’s over his bounds to even ask.

She shrugs again. “Not much. There’s something different about him. He’s not how I rem- “  her face scrunches up slightly and she tenses before starting over. “I asked him why he saved you.”

It makes sense. There could have been many motives behind it that weren’t at all what Steve knows to be true. But still, he can’t stop the blip of resentment he feels. Natasha tilts her head up at him. “He said he remembered something he promised you a long time ago. That’s all.”

* * *

 

**1930**

They were sitting on a strangers stoop when the burst of sweetness and bubbles exploded on Steve’s tongue.

He and Bucky shared a cola that Bucky was able to buy with the random change he found in his pocket. If his mother knew, he’d get his ear pulled. But he’s finding at the age of twelve, that Bucky’s ideas are the best ideas. His knee still hurt though, from where he hit the pavement when Charles shoved him. But it was okay. Buck broke his nose and chased him away.

Bucky grinned then. Big and large with a gap between his teeth. His hair had grown out despite his mother’s admonishment and ruffled at Steve’s fringe. Trying his best to take Steve’s mind away from the brawl by over cheerfulness and a sugary soft drink.

"I’ll look out for ya Stevie. Always."

* * *

 

Bucky’s not in any of the rooms when Steve goes back. But Sam is, making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and playing a tune on his phone. The place looks cleaned up. Better.

“He’s on the roof. Made sure to make me tell you,” Sam says and cuts the sandwich in half and offers one to Steve.

“Thanks,” he says gratefully before heading back towards the elevator.

“He also said sorry. For and I quote ‘almost shooting you in the head’.” Sam calls out behind him. “What is even my life these days.”

 

* * *

 

The rain has come to a soft drizzle when Steve makes it outside. Bucky’s sits with his feet dangling off the ledge and doesn’t move an inch when Steve comes to sit next him.

“I haven’t seen Natalia since she was small. Other than,” Bucky makes a face which translates to: _other than when I tried to kill her_. ”She’s strong. A part of me wants to be proud. But.” And he trails off, takes the offered halved sandwich.

Steve hums. “How much is coming back to you?” He’s been afraid to ask ever since Bucky mentioned the pieces that have. Only worried that he’ll take it the wrong way and think Steve is only holding out because he expects them all to.

Bucky shrugs. “Some. There are... triggers.” He tilts his head up to the morning grey sky, hair sticking to his face from the rain that also slides down his left arm. “Natalia smelled like vanilla. My mother made vanilla pudding.” He doesn’t phrase it like a question but Steve hears it. Like he wants to make sure it’s real. Steve nods.

“Yeah. You were obsessed with it.” Steve can’t tell if Bucky remembers his mother. Maybe he does. It's not his business anyway.

Bucky breathes out and angles his head to Steve. “Are you ever going to talk about it?”

Steve slows his chewing and swallows down the food that has become a lump now in his throat. “About what Buck?” He asks, but is so terrified if it’s what he thinks. Bucky’s face is unchanged. Dubious.

“I remember you know. Coming home after what my mother said.”

Steve’s hands grow slack and he lets them fall on his lap, sandwich forgotten. He convinces himself that it can be any number of times he’s mentioning. Bucky had visited his family home a bunch of times. So why can’t he breathe? He can’t be talking about –

Bucky’s calm, like he’s not having a problem in remembering. But like he’s been saving this bit of information from time. He’s studying Steve, looking for a tell. “I went back home to drop off some groceries. I worked there. I knew she was going to bring it up again. That girl – “

“Susanne.” Steve blurts out and wishes he could take it back. Bucky smiles tightly.

“Right. But,” he pauses. It takes everything to look Bucky in the eye. And that should be funny. Spending months looking for him only to want to look away and not witness this. He didn’t think he would have to talk about it ever again. Ready to leave such a huge part of him in the past because he thought it didn’t matter. As long as Bucky was safe.

But then again, it mattered so much.

“But, I left. Came home to you. You were a stubborn pain in the ass.” Bucky smiles and it’s remarkable to see how often those are starting to fit his face, even though it’s his sad one. But he’s trying. With his hair short and sitting this close, they could be back home in ’43. Sitting on a fire escape and talking about everything and nothing at all. It only takes a glance forward at the busy New York City and downward at the metal arm to bring him back. If he tries hard enough to investigate the curve of his lips, he’d know it’s forced. He’s so used to it now. Wishes that he can’t still see what a real smile on that face looks like any more behind his eyelids. But he does. God, he does.

“I told you I loved you.”

The drizzling rain is all that’s heard for a long moment. Bucky looks expectant but Steve can’t talk. Heart racing and tongue unresponsive. Trapped in time.

“I was wondering when you were going to tell me about it. Guess you were never going to.”

Steve could be crying for all he knows. His face is hot. His throat clicks when he speaks. “What matters is that you’re remembering who you used to be before they took you. Not what they wanted to make you into.”

Bucky stares. Old and wistful. “Or you were afraid I might not know what it was like to feel the same way.”

* * *

 

They don’t talk about it again.

Steve can take a hint.

* * *

 

**1933**

It happened like this.

The first time they kissed, they were at Bucky's home. He didn't get sick often, but when he did, it was bad. And the whole block heard about it.

It had to have been some sort of miracle because it was one of the few days where Steve wasn't sick and he stood over the stove, frowning at the bubbling cabbage soup. He couldn't figure out how to get it to stop tasting so watery.

The Barnes’ home was usually a full house, booming with noise and commotion but now was empty; with Bucky’s sisters at school and his parents at work. Technically, Steve should be at school too. He felt bad for lying to his mother about where he was really going when he left that morning, but still made a turn off course from school to Bucky's place.

Bucky laid sprawled on the couch. Too weak to get out of the quilt he had wrapped himself into and refused to part from to make it to his own bed. Sixteen and stubborn.

"Steve.” It came out more like a “Steeb.” It stopped being funny two days ago.

“I ain’t leaving so quit asking.”

“I’ll quit when you quit hoverin’. I ain't this bad when you're sick." He’d said through a blocked nose.

Steve shot him a look over his shoulder, because they both knew how big of a lie that was. Bucky still managed to roll his eyes. "Okay. Fine."

He ended up sitting next to Bucky’s cold feet that weren’t under the blanket, despite Bucky making a face and whining about being contagious. “I’ll leave after you eat something.” Steve had said, but it wasn’t true. If only to make Bucky quit glaring at him.

It was then -- Steve looking as Bucky sat up and took the hot bowl and starting to blow on a spoonful of soup. He was soft and a little flushed around the cheeks and sniffing and Steve never wanted to kiss anyone more in his life. He calculated the risks as Bucky ate, oblivious to the battle in his head. In the end, it came down to trusting the pull in his gut and the hints he thought Bucky had been dropping. The way he looked at him different than others. He went with it.

Steve leaned in and caught the bleary and confused look in Bucky’s eyes before kissing him. Sick and all. Lips warm and wet.

Bucky pulled back after a moment, sluggish and blinked as out of a dream, but then a soft smile spread in awe. "Am I dreamin’ here Stevie?"

The relief was immeasurable. “You dream about kissin’ me often there Buck?”

“You have no idea,” he said, eyes glinting with mischief. Steve breathed out, knocked senseless by the weight of those words before feeling hot all over.

"Come here," Bucky whispered and set down his soup.

Steve thought he could burst with the happiness surging through him. Said laughing, “Buck you're gonna suffocate,” when Bucky crowded him to steal another opened mouthed kiss. Hot and heady.

"Don't care." He murmured.

“Eat your damn soup and then – “

 

* * *

  
  
When Bruce gets back, the first thing he does is alert Steve via text that after his ‘reunion’ with Tony that he’d like to talk in his room. Steve had been looking forward to talking further about what he found from the HYDRA leak.

He’s not entirely sure when Bucky will return. He was quiet all day until finally speaking up.  

_(“I’m going to go for a walk.” He announced. He was dressed in jeans and flannel under his coat and hands in his pockets. None of which that belonged to Steve. Steve was half way finished sorting out his laundry with a bowl of cereal next to his feet._

_“Sure thing Buck. Do you want me to come with you?” He asked casually and Bucky shook his head, already heading for the elevator._ _)_

* * *

 

 "So the good news, I guess, is that he is getting some figments of his memories back." Bruce says. He takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes, tired as Steve looks through his notes that are filed neatly on the counter. “Sorry. Jet lag. The not so great news is that he's not exactly remembering them in the way, -- " Bruce makes a face. Like he just stopped himself from saying something like: _in the way someone who wasn't supremely fucked with for 70 odd years._

He shakes his head and takes a seat next to Steve. "Anyway, Steve, it's not the same. Think of it as watching a movie. He's seeing it all but there's not going to be any tether to them. You might as well be telling him a story." It's not blunt or blasé or lacking of emotion. It's the open, bare truth.   
  
"I'm sorry. I know it's not what you want to hear." Bruce says.  
  
Steve smiles at him. It doesn't seem to give Bruce any comfort. Probably looks like he's trying his best not to cry and for once in a long time since getting Bucky back, he doesn’t want to. "It’s not stopping him from starting over. Thanks doc. Really."

* * *

  
  
The crux is -- Steve doesn't buy it.   
  
He's seen the change in Bucky's eyes that keeps altering and evolving each day, good or bad. The twinge around his mouth when Sam says something particularly funny and how he doesn't seem like he's carrying so much weight anymore. There has been a noticeable shift. Big enough to make the hackles on most of the teammates lessen but small enough not to trigger any alarms.   
  
He knows Bucky. Always has. And so he knows Bucky had never stopped feeling, even when he was in the hands of HYDRA. It's that he's learning that it's okay to. 

* * *

 

**1940**

Bucky nudged Steve aside, both laughing and talking about the film they finished watching.

Steve stopped in his tracks, took Bucky’s hand and held the look of laughter in both their eyes. Bucky looked around but the road was empty.

When Steve pulled him in, he set his hands on Bucky’s body the way he’d seen Bucky do all the time with tons of other women. Recognition fell on Bucky, who smirked.

“You leadin’ here Steve?”

“Figured I should learn.”

He didn’t want to understand the slip in his smile then. But he did. The fact that at some point in their future, they would have to marry. Be with people who weren't each other and maybe, just maybe, it was time to start swallowing that truth instead of shoving it aside.

Still, reading each others minds and knowing exactly what the other was thinking -- still, they clasped onto each other harder. Did what they could to cement this memory.

They danced anyway. Slow.

* * *

 

“Well you’re getting better so there’s that,” Sam says, taking a bite from his burger. Steve tried at a glare but it would lack any heat. And it’s not like Sam’s wrong. “I mean, you’re out of your tower Rapunzel and no one had to make you let down your hair.”

“You’re hilarious.”

Sam shrugs. “Just saying man. That hovering shit was getting old and it wasn’t helping anyone. It’s annoying. Even to Barnes.”

Steve wants to ask how he would even know what Bucky thought until realizing he doesn’t know what Bucky does when he’s not around. Who else he talks to or what he would talk about. He overcome all of a sudden with a rush of pride.

“He threw me some serious shade when I suggested therapy,” Sam goes onto say and nurses his beer. “It’s better than him strangling me. Improvement. Therefore, quit the mother hen act.”

“I have been. I’m here aren’t I?” Steve says, irritated all of a sudden and not sure why. He picks up his own burger but only stares at it.

He hasn’t told anyone what Bucky said to him that morning on the roof. It’s been nearly two weeks now.  

“You are. But here?” Sam points to his head, “not so much.”

Steve sets his lunch down. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

Sam studies him for a moment, expression lined with tenderness before saying, “you love him.” And it does nothing less than floor him hearing it aloud. It must read on his face because Sam only shrugs. “It’s not like you make it hard to notice.”

And as easy as breathing, changes gears. “So, how’ve you been?”

Steve raises an eyebrow, waiting for the punch line. When it doesn’t come, he shrugs and picks up a fry. Sam kicks him sharply under the table that barely affects him.

He tries. “I’m,” Steve thinks and lets out an airy breath, surprised. “I’m doing better.”

Sam smiles warmly.

* * *

 

Bucky was a great swimmer. An even better diver.

He had to work at it though. He'd come home with a red belly from the amount of times he'd hit the water on more of a slap than a proper dive. (Steve got confused when the sight of it made something coil hot in his chest at the ripe age of thirteen.)

Steve was better at it but Bucky attributed that to his reckless nature.  
  
He got it right eventually, but said grandiosely, "we live in fuckin Brooklyn for chrissakes! When will I ever need to dive? _Have you seen the docks?_ " 

* * *

 

Bucky looks different after his walk. Steve can’t place a finger on it. He comes back carrying a plastic bag that has take-out from a Thai place.

“I brought you some,” he says after shrugging out of his coat and taking off the gloves over his fingers. Steve opens the carton. Thai green curry. Bucky has the same.

“Thanks Buck,” he says, “I’ve never tried Thai yet.” It was one of the suggestions on his list but he never got down to it.

Bucky smiles, almost shy. “Me either.”

* * *

 

Natasha’s drinking expensive wine that was brought over from god knows where in her room.

“You didn’t plan on reminding your best friend on your history together," she says ' _history'_ with a tone that indicates she knows exactly what she's talking about, despite the fact Steve hadn't (explicitly) told her anything, "but he called your bluff. And now you know you should talk about it, but you also don’t want to because you think it might pressure him or make him think he owes you something and that’s why you’re hiding out here.” Natasha recites, putting her feet on his lap.

“I’m not hiding,” Steve says stubbornly but other than that, she hit it well on the head.

“Right,” she says, looking at him over the top of the bottle. “Remind me why you’re talking to me about this and not him?”

“I’m going to.” He is. But –

“But?”

He’d been telling himself it night after night. Bucky choosing to sleep in his own bedroom now and leaving Steve to his thoughts. The plan was simple. If he kept it hidden and under wraps, something private to keep with himself, at least then, Bucky could start to become this person he’s becoming without any outside influence. Out of HYDRA’s violent hands and Steve’s selfish ones.

The look she gives him is even. “Have you thought that maybe it’s not about you?” She’s not angry. “Listen Steve,” and she sets the bottle down, serious. “They remake you in the Red Room. Brainwash you. Make you believe you’re fighting for the good fight. It’s about ownership." She quirks her head. Red hair growing back at the roots. "He has choices now. He’s already made the one that matters most. The one where you tell yourself you have one in the first place. Do you really believe that he would choose anything he didn’t want now that he’s out?”

Steve looks at his hands. “No.”

“He’s getting somewhere.” Natasha says and gets back to her wine.

And she’s right.

Bucky has stopped staring off into the distance as often as he used to and no longer holes himself up in Steve’s floor all the time. Steve finds him sometimes in Tony’s garage, conveniently when Tony isn’t there, inspecting the cars there and weaponry. Which quit making everyone nervous on premises after Steve snapped at Tony about it. Other times Bucky’s in the gym with Natasha or on Bruce’s floor where he’d be for hours and come back looking calmer and not so pensive and distraught. He's carving something new for himself and Steve knows what he has to do.

_He knows._

* * *

 

When Steve gets back to his floor, Bucky is sitting on one of the kitchen counter stools with an ice pack on his head. “Sparring with Barton. Actually let me use weapons this time. Unlike you,” he adds, and Steve notices how the churning in his stomach he’s felt all day shifts to a swelling feeling in his chest.

He comes over to sit next to him, Bucky tracking him with sniper’s precision.

Steve starts. Never has been one to beat around the bush. “About what you told me, on the roof," he begins. Bucky’s face doesn’t change over the reminder.

It comes out of nowhere -- the squeeze beneath his ribcage. He finds he can’t finish the thought. All the words previously mapped out in his head before scattering. Lost. Bucky lowers the ice pack and sets it aside.

“I loved you,” Bucky says, pulling Steve out of his stupor like he always had and still does. Wades in and saves Steve’s neck even when it was Steve who got himself there to begin with and Steve resenting the fact that Bucky did it anyway. This is no different. The cut to the side of his eyebrow is still bleeding, and he says it like he’s talking about the weather. “Before.”

Steve swallows. “Yeah. You did.”

And that’s okay, he thinks finally. The sense of it all – 70 years of being tangentially in love with someone and being okay with it. How it will still be there to help nourish him and keep him warm inside for even more years. He’d loved Bucky from afar before he even knew what it was. Thinks that those memories back then, drunk and stupid and tripping over each other can finally be enough to survive being with him now. He can let go of that. Or at least, teach himself to be fine with never having that again. The past tense of that burns a hole inside of him and he presses the truth of it into Bucky, who looks at him strangely.

“I remember it. But I don’t – “

Steve puts his hand on his knee. Smiling in the way where it’s all he can do to stop from breaking down. “It’s okay.” 

What he doesn’t expect, is Bucky to shake his head, frowning a little and frustrated. “No. Shut up. Let me finish.” Steve stares at him and removes his hand. “I don’t think it ever went away.”

The world sways.

Bucky looks him dead in the eyes, determined. “I want to.” He says. “I want to try.”

And this is exactly what Steve doesn’t want. “Buck. No.”

The look on Bucky’s face makes Steve want to curl into himself and disappear. Betrayed and confused but he waits, and says nothing.

“You don’t have to, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do." He makes sure he's being heard. "I never, ever, want you to do something you don’t want to do Bucky. Or expect yourself to do.”

Bucky stares at him for longer than is appropriate before he tilts his head, almost childlike. Save for his eyes that are piercing through him. Blue. “You don’t want me.”

It's a miracle that Steve doesn't buckle from hearing that. How contrary it is. “I do,” Steve says. “but –“

“But then nothing.” Bucky finishes. He rests his flesh hand on the side of Steve’s neck, warm and solid. “You want me to choose for myself but then you put up a fight when I do.” He lets out a breathy laugh, like he’s amazed but still fond. A growing emotion. “Let me choose.”

Steve nods, helpless.

Bucky smiles. It’s lopsided, shy even. Steve thinks Bucky is ashamed of how small it is. Like it's a project he's been working at for a while but it’s not. It’s new and Steve wants to see every form it takes on that face. Small or large. New or reminiscent of how he smiled back then. “I choose you.”

When Bucky closes the distance between them, the kiss is soft and given a glide aided by how much Steve was biting his lips before. It would break his heart but it doesn’t.

It feels like being mended. For once, being the one fixed and rescued in all the ways he used to be when it came to Bucky.

* * *

 

Steve doesn’t fall asleep with Bucky but ends up getting shaken awake by him anyway in the dead of night.

When his eyesight gets focused in the dark, Bucky is standing and dressed ready to go somewhere. Two bags packed on the floor.

“Bucky?” Steve whispers, rubbing at his eyes.

“’43 in France. I promised I’d take you back to Paris. Being so close to the Louvre and not being able to see her?" He quotes and raises two flight tickets. “Wanna go?”

It takes a moment for it all to register. When it does, Steve grins in a way he hasn’t in years. The spike in his heart pumping life into him. Bucky pokes Steve’s naked right rib. A spot on his body that’s always been ticklish and that the serum couldn’t desensitize.  

Steve takes one of the tickets and reads the details. Giddy. “It leaves in two hours.”

“No time like the present, right?” Bucky says, in a rare show of teasing and Steve’s out of bed like a shot.

It’s all they have now. The present and the array of choices they can start to make in a world they’ve both barely scraped the surface of.

Steve hears Peggy. Wise and intelligent as the day he met her. Her words ringing in his ears and aiding him like she always had. _("All we can do is our best, and sometimes, the best that we can do, is to start over.")_

Bucky watches as Steve gets dressed as quick as he can and it’s not déjà vu any more, looking at Bucky and seeing a flicker in the glamour. To a man dressed in army green and hair sleeked demurely. It’s just Bucky. Down to his core. The one who Steve never stopped thanking his chances for meeting at age five. The one who he lost and got back in a cruel twist of fate.

And at this moment, it’s Bucky looking at him. Not like Steve is breaking his heart or staring into space with blank feeling.  _He looks…_

“What’s the rush?” Bucky asks, lifting both bags easily. But his eyes have a hint of a sparkle behind them. Mischievous and warm when Steve gets over to him. Steve doesn’t think he’ll stop wanting to gaze into those eyes. He wouldn’t want to stop himself anyway. Never has. 

“There isn’t any,” Steve says and it’s another promise in their long string of promises that have never been broken.

Steve gives into the yearning -- lets himself press his lips to Bucky's who kisses back after a moment. Wraps both his arms, metal and flesh around his waist and it feels like going back in time. But more than anything, feels like a genesis. Like starting over.

And if it is, they have all the time in the world.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to say that now I can stop being so upset over these two but it's a lie. Forever sobbing to Cap 3 and probably forever.


End file.
